Question No : 1
(A) The RTI has been used brilliantly and persistently to ask a million questions across the spectrum — from the village ration shop, the Reserve Bank of India, the Finance Ministry, on demonetisation, nonperforming assets, the Rafael fighter aircraft deal, electoral bonds, unemployment figures, the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), Election Commissioners, and the (non)- appointment of the Information Commissioners themselves.
(B) An independent Information Commission which is the highest authority on information along with the powers to penalise errant officials has been a cornerstone of India’s celebrated RTI legislation.
(C) The mostly unequal struggle to extract information from vested interests in government needed an institutional and legal mechanism which would not only be independent but also function with a transparency mandate and be empowered to over-ride the traditional structures of secrecy and exclusive control.
(D) The Indian RTI law has been a breakthrough in creating mechanisms and platforms for the practice of continual public vigilance that are fundamental to democratic citizenship.
(E) That is what the government is trying to amend. The RTI movement has struggled to access information and through it, a share of governance and democratic power.
(F) The information related to decision-making at the highest level has in most cases eventually been accessed because of the independence and high status of the Information Commission.
(1) FEDCB
(2) DEBCF
(3) CFEBD
(4) EFDBC
(5) BDCFE
Question No : 2
(A) In the Shakti Mills case, given the permanent and irrevocable nature of the death penalty, there arose a fundamental question.
(B) Proportionality by its very nature precludes a complete deference to the state when it comes to adjudicating on the violations of fundamental rights.
(C) his pertained to whether the legislative objective, of increasing the punishment for a certain category of offences to demonstrate social abhorrence towards such offenders, and to create deterrence, could be adequately fulfilled by a sentence of life imprisonment.
(D) However, the Court did not at any point scrutinize the reasons that would have potentially justified the state’s decision to go for death penalty in the case of a nonhomicidal crime.
(E) While it is true, in general, that in questions of criminal sentencing, there is a broad presumption in favour of the state, simply stopping at that is not adequate for a court.
(F) However, instead of addressing this issue, the Court relied entirely on the fact that the law had been passed with the intention of deterring rapes.
(1) FEDCB
(2) DEBCF
(3) CFEBD
(4) EFDBC
(5) BDCFE
Question No : 3
(A) After aborting a countdown because of a technical fault on July 15, the Indian Space Research Organization has put its second lunar mission in earth orbit, using a challenging launch window.
(B) The setback has actually worked to the advantage of Indian space science. Just as it had developed indigenous cryogenic engines when it was starved of dual-use technologies, the industry has innovated an indigenous rover, Pragyan.
(C) On September 6, India expects to become the fourth nation, after the US, Russia and China, to make a soft landing on the lunar surface.
(D) That’s 11 years after the first moons hot in 2008, which had sent back data answering one of the oldest questions about our satellite: Does it have water?
(E) This mission was originally planned for 2014, but was delayed because the Russian space agency, Roscommon, a partner in the project, failed to deliver a rover.
(F) Chandrayaan 1 had only crash-landed a probe on the moon, and a soft landing using retro-rockets would be a crucial demonstration of capabilities.
(1) FEDCB
(2) DEBCF
(3) CFEBD
(4) EFDBC
(5) BDCFE
Question No : 4
(A) The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) in economics states that the price of an asset at a given time reflects all available information.
(B) EMH gained credibility and acceptance with the advent of computing power and the work of many economists, most notably Eugene Fama from the University of Chicago, in the 1960s.
(C) One of the critical assumptions underlying EMH is that market participants have rational expectations and as a whole have a normally distributed set of views that then results in a random (unpredictable) pattern of asset prices.
(D) EMH was built upon earlier work and theories, including the work of French mathematician Louis Bachelier and the random walk hypothesis (RWH), which suggested that prices of assets evolve along a random walk and thus cannot be predicted.
(E) Even the legendary Warren Buffett has underperformed the S&P 500 in the most recent decade. Critics point to long price trendlines in certain stocks and market breaks such as the financial crisis of 2008 that demonstrate “herd behaviour".
(F) Believers in EMH cite evidence that active money managers in aggregate have not been able to beat stock market indices.
(1) FEDCB
(2) DEBCF
(3) CFEBD
(4) EFDBC
(5) BDCFE
Question No : 5
(A) In its second iteration, the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill seems to have gained from its time in the bottle, like ageing wine.
(B) A single National Exit Test (NEXT) will be conducted across the country replacing the final year MBBS exam, and the scores used to allot PG seats as well.
(C) It will allow medical graduates to start medical practice, seek admission to PG courses, and screen foreign medical graduates who want to practice in India.
(D) The provisions of interest are in the core area of medical education. The Bill proposes to unify testing for exit from the MBBS course, and entry into postgraduate medical courses.
(E) The new version has some sharp divergences from the original. Presented in Parliament in 2017, it proposed to replace the Medical Council Act, 1956, but it lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.
(F) The NMC will have authority over medical education — approvals for colleges, admissions, tests and fee-fixation.
(1) FEDCB
(2) DEBCF
(3) CFEBD
(4) EFDBC
(5) BDCFE