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  • Our civil services need a reboot

    The Mission Karmayogi seeks to overhaul the bureaucracy in the country. The article discusses its aims and the challenges it could face.

    Context

    • The Union cabinet’s approval of Mission Karmayogi has raised the hope of a national bureaucracy that is adequately responsive to the country’s needs.

    Need for the overhaul

    • The system’s focus needs to be role- rather than rule-specific,
    • Coordination should prevail over battles for control, and IAS officers ought to be enablers instead of red-tape wrappers. 
    • There has been a near consensus in the country that our system of policy implementation needs an overhaul.

    What  is Mission Karmayogi

    • It is an upskilling initiative for government officials that aims to fix and galvanize India’s administration.
    • As envisaged, the Karmayogi training mechanism will cover an estimated 4.6 million officials at all levels.
    • Due to the scale of the exercise elaborate multi-tier command structure is expected to be put in place for it.
    • At its apex would be a Human Resource Council, headed by the Prime Minister.
    • Human Resource Council shall approve and monitor various skill-enhancing programmes as well as review the performance of employees routinely.

    Challenges

    • Given the way our bureaucracy has operated for decades, Mission Karmayogi is likely to prove disruptive.
    • The idea of being subject to continuous evaluation by a central authority could unsettle some officers.
    • There has been some disquiet within IAS ranks over the Centre’s lateral induction of people for senior roles, perhaps the new mission will resolve such disgruntlement.

    Conclusion

    Gentralized supervision of such large numbers does not promise to be easy. Globally, centralization has been observed to militate against diversity of thought. And that’s vital to the governance of a country like India.

  • Scrutinising government’s work in limited monsoon session

    The article analyses the impact of pandemic on the functioning legislatures and issues its implications.

    Context

    • Due to coronavirus pandemic, several States have held very short sessions in which they ratified a number of ordinances and hardly questioned any executive action over the last few months.

    Role of Parliament and Court

    • The government has the mandate to take decisions and perform various public tasks.
    • Government in turn is accountable to the legislature which can question it, and, as an extreme step, even replace it.
    • The legislature is accountable to citizens through regular elections.
    • Finally, constitutional courts are expected to ensure that all actions are made within the boundaries of the Constitution and laws made by the legislature.

    Dilution of the role of Parliament in  India

    • Indian Parliament has allowed its role to be diluted over the last few decades.
    • It has not questioned and monitored the activity of the executive.
    • Comparison with British Parliament: The United Kingdom’s joint parliamentary committee on human rights examined the proposals of a contact tracing app.
    • The committee recommended that an app could be used only if there was specific primary legislation to enable it. 
    •  India, in contrast, rolled out Aarogya Setu through executive decision, and has created a grey zone on whether it is mandatory or not.
    • Parliament should recover lost ground by fulfilling its constitutionally mandated role.

    Lack of parliamentary oversight during pandemic

    • Parliament will be meeting after 175 days.
    • 175 days’ is the longest gap without intervening general elections and just short of the six-month constitutional limit.
    • During the pandemic, over 900 central and nearly 6,000 State government notifications have been issued
    • Parliamentary committees did not meet for about four months.
    • This is unlike many other countries where both the plenary and committees have adopted technology to enable members to participate from home.

    Judicial intervention in policy issues

    • The lack of parliamentary oversight has been compounded by judicial intervention in many policy issues.
    •  For example, the government’s actions related to the lockdown should have been questioned by Parliament.
    • However, this was taken to the Supreme Court, which is not equipped and mandated to balance policy options.
    • Directions of the Court have to be followed which removes flexibility needed to tackle evolving issues with implementation.
    • Consider another case, Court decided to limit the period in which telecom companies have to pay their dues to the government, and overruled a cabinet decision.
    • This is a policy matter that balances interests of telecom companies, consumers and banks.
    • This issue is best judged by the government with oversight by Parliament.
    • And court should step in if there is an illegality.

    Way forward

    • Several events have taken place over the last six months that need thorough discussion.
    • This includes ways to tackle the spread of the coronavirus, economic growth which has had a sharp fall in the first quarter of this fiscal year.
    • This has far-reaching implications for creating jobs, stability of the banking system, and government finances.
    • The government is likely to bring in a supplementary budget; indeed, a fresh look at the Union Budget may be required given the changes in basic assumptions since January.
    • The situation at the China border also needs to be discussed.

    Consider the question “Anlyse the impact of pandemic on the key organs of the democracy.”

    Conclusion

    Parliamentarians have a duty towards Indian citizens to fulfil their role in scrutinising the work of the government and guiding policy. Despite the curtailed session and the constraints due to the coronavirus, they should make the best of the limited time to do so. They need to wrest back their rightful role in our democracy.

  • Priority Sector Lending (PSL)

    The RBI has released a revised priority sector lending guidelines to augment funding to segments including start-ups and agriculture.

    New Priority Sector Lending (PSL) guidelines

    • Bank finance of up to ₹50 crores to start-ups, loans to farmers both for installation of solar power plants for Solarization of grid-connected agriculture pumps and for setting up compressed biogas (CBG) plants have been included as fresh categories eligible for finance under the priority sector.
    • This has come to align it with emerging national priorities and bring a sharper focus on inclusive development, after having wide-ranging discussions with all stakeholders.
    • It will enable better credit penetration to credit deficient areas, increase the lending to small and marginal farmers and weaker sections, boost credit to renewable energy, and health infrastructure
    • The targets prescribed for ‘small and marginal farmers’ and ‘weaker sections’ are being increased in a phased manner.
    • Higher credit limit has been specified for farmer producer organisations (FPOs)/farmers producers companies (FPCs) undertaking farming with assured marketing of their produce at a pre-determined price.

    Back2Basics: Priority Sector Lending

    • PSL is an important role given by the (RBI) to the banks for providing a specified portion of the bank lending to few specific sectors like agriculture and allied activities, micro and small enterprises, poor people for housing, students for education and other low-income groups and weaker sections.
    • This is essentially meant for an all-round development of the economy as opposed to focusing only on the financial sector.
    • The broad categories of priority sector for all scheduled commercial banks are as under:
    1. Agriculture and Allied Activities (Direct and Indirect finance)
    2. Small Scale Industries (Direct and Indirect Finance)
    3. Small Business / Service Enterprises
    4. Micro Credit
    5. Education loans
    6. Housing loans
  • What counts as ‘Act of God’?

    Amid disruptions caused by Covid-19, the Finance Minister has referred to an Act of God while businesses are looking at a legal provision, force majeure, to cut losses.

    Note the key differences between the Act of God and Force Majeure.

    Evoking “Act of God”

    • The force majeure or “Act of God” clause has its origins in the Napoleonic Code.
    • The finance ministry had issued an office memorandum inviting attention to the force majeure clause (FMC) in the 2017 Manual for Procurement of Goods issued by the Department of Expenditure.
    • It clarified that the pandemic should be considered a case of natural calamity and FMC may be invoked, wherever considered appropriate.

    What is a force majeure clause?

    • The law of contracts is built around a fundamental norm that the parties must perform the contract.
    • When a party fails to perform its part of the contract, the loss to the other party is made good.
    • However, the law carves out exceptions when the performance of the contract becomes impossible for the parties.
    • A force majeure clause is one such exception that releases the party of its obligations to an extent when events beyond their control take place and leave them unable to perform their part of the contract.
    • FMC is a clause that is present in most commercial contracts and is a carefully drafted legal arrangement in the event of a crisis.
    • When the clause is triggered, parties can decide to break from their obligations temporarily or permanently without necessarily breaching the contract.
    • Companies in such situations use the clause as a safe exit route, sometimes in opportunistic ways, without having to incur the penalty of breaching the contract.

    Difference between the two

    • Both concepts elicit the same consequences in law.
    • Generally, an “Act of God” is understood to include only natural unforeseen circumstances, whereas force majeure is wider in its ambit and includes both naturally occurring events and events that occur due to human intervention.

    What situations legally qualify for use of force majeure?

    • While some contracts have clauses with standard circumstances, some contracts would have specific circumstances that are more focused.
    • For example, a shipping contract would have a force majeure clause that could cover a natural disaster like a tsunami.
    • If an event is not described, then it is interpreted in a way that it falls in the same category of events that are described.
    • An FMC is negotiated by parties, and events that could potentially hamper the performance of the contract are catalogued.
    • It is not invoked just by expressing that an unforeseen event has occurred.
    • In case a contract does not have a force majeure clause, there are some protections in common law that can be invoked by parties.
    • For example, the Indian Contract Act, 1872 provides that a contract becomes void if it becomes impossible due to an event after the contract was signed that the party could not prevent.

    Global precedents dealing with COVID-19 pandemic

    • In China, where the Covid-19 outbreak originated, the Council for Promotion of International Trade is issuing force majeure certificates to businesses.
    • China’s Supreme People’s Court had recognised the 2002 SARS outbreak as a force majeure event.
    • Singapore enacted the Covid-19 (Temporary Measures) Act in April to provide relief to businesses that could not perform their contractual obligations due to the pandemic.
    • The Paris Commercial Court in July ruled that the pandemic could be equated to a force majeure event.
    • In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority has brought in a test case before the High Court to look into business insurance contracts and interpret the standard wordings in such contracts.
    • The International Chamber of Commerce has developed a Model Code on the force majeure clause reflecting current international practice.
  • What is Project Dolphin?

    In his Independence Day Speech this year, PM has announced the government’s plan to launch a Project Dolphin. The proposed project is aimed at saving both river and marine dolphins.

    Project Dolphin

    • The Project will be on the lines of Project Tiger, which has helped increase the tiger population.
    • So far, the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), which implements the government’s flagship scheme Namami Gange, has been taking some initiatives for saving dolphins.
    • Now, Project Dolphin is expected to be implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

    About Gangetic Dolphin

    • The Gangetic river system is home to a vast variety of aquatic life, including the Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica).
    • It is one of five species of river dolphin found around the world.
    • It is found mainly in the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems.
    • An adult dolphin could weigh between 70 kg and 90 kg. The breeding season of the Gangetic dolphin extends from January to June.
    • They feed on several species of fishes, invertebrates etc.

    Why is it important to save dolphins?

    • The construction of dams and barrages and increasing pollution has led to a decline in the population of aquatic animals in the rivers in general and of dolphins in particular.
    • Aquatic life is an indicator of the health of river ecosystems.
    • As the Gangetic dolphin is at the top of the food chain, protecting the species and its habitat will ensure

    Aquatic life as an indicator of the health of a river system

    • Globally, there have been such examples. For instance, the Rhine Action Plan (1987) of the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR) brought back the salmon.
    • The return of the migratory fish is taken as an indicator of the river’s improved health.
    • Salmon used to migrate from the North Sea to the Rhine every year and reproduce, but this stopped when pollution increased in the river.
    • After a chemical accident in 1986 that caused the death of fish and microorganisms, the Action Plan was launched.
    • This led to an improvement in the quality of the river water, and the salmons began to return.

    What has been done to save Gangetic dolphins so far?

    • Although efforts to save them were started in the mid-1980s, the estimates suggest the numbers have not risen as a result.
    • The Gangetic dolphin remains listed as Endangered by the IUCN.
    • After the launch of Ganga Action Plan in 1985, the government on November 24, 1986, included Gangetic dolphins in the First Schedule of the Indian Wildlife (Protection), Act 1972.
    • This was aimed at checking hunting and providing conservation facilities such as wildlife sanctuaries. For instance, Vikramshila Ganges Dolphin Sanctuary was established in Bihar under this Act.

    Conservation so far

    • The government has prepared The Conservation Action Plan for the Ganges River Dolphin 2010-2020.
    • It identified threats to Gangetic Dolphins and impact of river traffic, irrigation canals and depletion of prey-base on Dolphins populations.
    • On October 5, 2009, the then PM declared the Gangetic river dolphin as the national aquatic animal.
    • A notification was issued by the MoEFCC the following year. Now, the National Mission for Clean Ganga celebrates October 5 as National Ganga River Dolphin Day.
  • Vitamin-D Deficiency

    The pandemic-induced lockdown has confined people to their houses for five months now. The resultant lack of sunlight, followed by rains, has brought down the vitamin D levels to the lowest.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2014:

    Q.Consider the following pairs:

    Vitamin Deficiency:: Disease

    1. Vitamin C::Scurvy
    2. Vitamin D:: Rickets
    3. Vitamin E:: Night blindness

    Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1, 2 and 3

    (d) None

    What is Vitamin-D?

    • Vitamin D is an essential vitamin that has myriad positive effects on several systems in the body.
    • Unlike other vitamins, it functions like a hormone and every cell in your body has a receptor for it.
    • It is sparsely found in certain fatty fish and fortified dairy products, and it is extremely difficult to get the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) of 600-800 IU from diet alone.

    There are two main forms of vitamin D in the diet:

    – Vitamin D2 (Ergocalciferol) — found in plant foods like mushrooms.
    – Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol) — found in animal foods like salmon, cod and egg yolks.

    Common signs and symptoms of the deficiency

    Vitamin D deficiency is incredibly common and most people are unaware of it, as the symptoms are subtle and nonspecific.

    – Getting sick or infected often with common cold and flu, because of a weak immune system.
    – Fatigue and tiredness
    – Bone and muscle pains
    – Depression
    – Impaired wound healing
    – Bone loss and osteoporosis

    Sources of Vit. D

    • Sunlight is the best natural source of vitamin D. Sunlight synthesizes cholesterol into Vitamin D3.
    • Usually, 20 to 30 minutes of sun exposure between 10 am and 3 pm is adequate to meet daily requirements, in places with minimum pollution levels.
  • [Burning Issue] Rolling-out of National Digital Health Mission

    The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) announced by the PM on the 74th Independence Day has the potential to transform the healthcare sector, making it more technologically advanced, inclusive and delivery-driven.

    Digitizing Healthcare: A Backgrounder

    • The National Health Policy 2017 had envisaged creation of a digital health technology eco-system aiming at developing an integrated health information system.
    • A Digital Health ID was proposed to reduce the risk of preventable medical errors and significantly increase the quality of care.
    • In the context of this, the NITI Aayog, in June 2018, floated a consultation of a digital backbone for India’s health system — National Health Stack (NHS).
    • A committee headed by former Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman released the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) in July 2019.
    • It recognised the need to establish a specialised ecosystem, called the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) which finally landed on the tarmac on this Independence Day.

    The National Digital Health Mission

    • The NDHM is a digital health ecosystem under which every Indian citizen will now have unique health IDs, digitized health records with identifiers for doctors and health facilities.
    • The mission will significantly improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of health service delivery and will be a major step towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.8 of Universal Health Coverage, including financial risk protection.

    Components of the mission

    The suite of digital systems consists of Health ID, DigiDoctor, Health Facility Registry (HFR), Personal Health Records, e-Pharmacy, and Telemedicine.

    The mission envisages the creation of these core digital systems which are built to support timely access to safe, affordable healthcare for all citizens and will accelerate the country’s progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

    Unique features

    The mission has unique features which make it very attractive for all the stakeholders to be part of the system, some of which are as follows:

    Expected benefits

    (1) Prioritizing patients

    • Say, mortality from Covid-19 is significantly increased by comorbidities or the presence of other underlying conditions like hypertension or diabetes.
    • With digital health records, doctors can prioritise patients based on their test results.

    (2) Portability of health records

    • Portability of records fairly eases in a patient with the first hospital visit, or her/his most frequently visited hospital.
    • If she/he wishes to change a healthcare provider for cost or quality reasons, she can access her health records without carrying pieces of paper — prescriptions and test reports.
    • People will able to access their lab reports, x-rays and prescriptions irrespective of where they were generated, and share them with doctors or family members — with consent.

    (3) Easy facilitation

    • This initiative will allow patients to access healthcare facilities remotely through e-pharmacies, online appointments, teleconsultation, and other health benefits.
    • Besides, as all the medical history of the patient is recorded in the Health ID card, it will help the doctor to understand the case better, and improved medication can be offered.
    • It is non-prescriptive — unlike its predecessor from a few years ago, it steers away from designing a monolithic EMR (an electronic medical record) and instead only provides data facilitation exchange between patients, providers and payers.

    (4) Technology impetus in policymaking

    • Meanwhile, it is also not just individuals who could emerge beneficiaries of the scheme.
    • With large swathes of data being made available, the government too can form policies based on geographical, demographical, and risk-factor based monitoring of health.

    Various Issues

    The imminent adoption of NDHM in the absence of a data protection law has led for the policymakers to plan for two policies — security of health systems, and privacy of personal health records.

    With the unavailability of information security laws related to healthcare in India, the following could be the repercussions or could lead to violation of the mandatory requirements:

    (1) High Probability of Data Breach:

    The data breach occurs when any person or corporate generates, collects, stores, transmits or discloses digital health information in contravention to the provisions or standards laid down.

    (2) Data Ownership and Standardization Issues:

     An owner shall have the right to give/refuse or withdraw consent for the storage and transmission of digital health data. In terms of standardization, it is very important to transform the data before loading it to the target system.

    (3) Data Normalization Issues:

    Data Normalization is done to reduce data redundancy and improve data integrity. In view of the unavailability of such laws, it could bring redundancy as data could exist in multiple forms.

    (4) Data Collection, Storage and Transmission Challenges:

    The purpose of data generation, collection, storage and transmission is to facilitate health and clinical research and health care quality. But the unavailability of data protection and information security laws (for maintaining CIA- confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) could lead to the collection of data without informing the owner, lack of privacy controls while storing in the cloud and transmitting the data without the consent of the owner.

    (5) Illegal data selling and theft: Unavailability of appropriate laws could lead to incidents where digital health data is acquired or accessed without proper authorization. For example, monetizing the patient data for the purpose of research and innovation may also be misused by its illegal selling without the knowledge of the patient, thereby, leaking his sensitive data amounting to the violation of data privacy.

    (6) Data Quality Issues- There could be the following data quality issues that can be encountered without the proper laws in place:

    • Duplicated data: Repeated data making it difficult to uniquely identify the record;
    • Inconsistent data formats: Storing the same data in multiple tables from different data sources;
    • Inaccurate data: Either the data is obsolete or has errors in it;
    • Excessive data: Unusable data could be a waste of storage and cost;
    • Poorly Defined data: Causes misunderstanding around the proper methodology for data management.

    India has not yet enacted specific and full-fledged legislation on data protection. Of course, the Parliament of India had amended the Information Technology Act (2000) (“IT Act”) to include specific section 43A, but it only includes corporates and not individuals regarding compensation for failure to protect data.

    Other inherent issues

    • A fragmented private healthcare market consisting of single-doctor clinics, nursing homes, non-profits and corporate hospitals have varying adoption rates of digitization.
    • Corporate hospitals like Max, Apollo, Fortis, etc. have voluntarily adopted electronic health records standards notified by the government.
    • However, it is not possible for a patient to digitally transfer their health records from one type of hospital or a healthcare provider to another.
    • Critical to that is also the role of doctors, who will play a significant role in maintaining electronic digital data.
    • The growth path is powered by clinicians and we haven’t really been successful in filling the void.
    • India currently has 0.8 doctors per 1,000 patients, in comparison to over 2 per 1,000 in China and 2.6 in the US. The WHO recommends 1 doctor to 1,000 patients.

    Making it happen

    Many countries are lightyears ahead of India in their use of digital health records, but none has anchored its vision as robustly around the public health records, as has the current iteration of the NDHM.

    Making it a success will have to fill the voids discuss above.

    To enable seamless data exchange, all users must be incentivized or mandated to adopt a standard language of communication.  The spiraling burden for documentation had led to absurd situations. It is imperative that India, while embracing global standards, seriously rethinks what to document, when, why, and most importantly, by whom.

    Conclusion

    There is no doubt that NDHM launched will significantly improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of health services delivery including building a paperless system and will facilitate online consultation with the doctors. But data protection and privacy are the keys to the success of this mission.

    The usual conclusion rests with a generic statement-

    “These tectonic shifts won’t all happen all of sudden. Or within the cyclical tenure of bureaucrats or politicians. And they won’t occur in the absence of the long-overdue overhaul of healthcare delivery in India. But when they do, they will advance medicine and health for all.”

     


    References

    https://www.civilsdaily.com/mains/how-the-proposed-national-digital-health-mission-could-transform-health-system-in-india-what-are-the-concerns-with-it-10-marks/

    http://www.mondaq.com/india/healthcare/980800/national-digital-health-mission-harnessing-technology-to-strengthen-healthcare-in-india

    https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/08/15/explained-what-is-the-national-digital-health-mission-how-does-a-health-id-card-help.html

  • Eye-Opener Coming Up! Catch the Second Basic Economic Prelims Test (5th September) to Re-imagine How You Look At UPSC Prelims

    Click here to enrol for the Prime Prelims TS 2021

    What was it that initially made Great Britain bleed but subsequently helped it to secure a smashing victory in the second world war? Enigma it was. Alan Turing built the “Turing Machine” that helped decrypt the seemingly unbreakable German Code. Then something very astonishing followed. Great Britain exploited the loopholes of the Enigma itself and the Germans lost without having the slightest hint of Enigma being compromised.

    For a UPSC Aspirant, isn’t the “unpredictable” paper setting pattern of UPSC a modern-day Enigma? But what if there was a “Turing Machine” that could break into this “Unbreakable” code of UPSC? For your amusement, there is one.

    Talking about UPSC Civil Services Prelims, mock test series has become a Categorical Imperative. But which one truly breaks the “UPSC Enigma”? How about one made by Frontline Warriors themselves (Veteran Aspirants) who have successfully cleared prelims five or six times consecutively? Isn’t the collective wisdom of these “Alan Turings” the closest version of a “UPSC Turing Machine”?

    Now, let us speak about the test in question. It’s the eighth test of the newly launched Prelims Test Series for 2021 by CivilsDaily. It’s a Basic Economics Test covering dynamic topics like Agriculture, Industries, Infrastructure, International Trade and related International Bodies.. Let’s see how it is the first step towards breaking the “UPSC Enigma”:

    1. CD Special Questions:

    These questions are special due to their;

    • Mind-Twisting Nature (Deceptive questions that fool you exactly as UPSC does in the real exam)
    • Exclusiveness (These Perspectives / Themes are only available in CD tests). 

    Have a look –

    Q. Consider the following regarding Logistic Performance Index (LPI):

    1. It is released by Word bank bi-annually.

    2. LPI ranking of India has increased over the last few years.

    3. The logistic sector has been given infrastructure status.

    Which of the above statements is/are correct?

    a. 1 and 2 only

    b. 1 and 3 only

    c. 2 and 3 only

    d. All of them

    Try guessing the right answer to this seemingly simple yet tricky question.

    2. Tikdams:

    These are Logical Solving Techniques that help you attempt questions despite having little or no idea about the question. It’s almost like getting a master key to the prelims paper. Have a look –

    Q. With reference to the Zero based budgeting, consider the following statements:

    1. It is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period.

    2. It is a faster process than traditional cost-based budgeting.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    a. 1 only

    b. 2 only

    c. Noth of them

    d. Neither of them

    The test explains this basic question by using a Technique we call “Extreme Exaggeration” (assuming you don’t know the correct answer).

    3. Evidence-Based Question Framing:

    To keep close to the real demand of the exam. Have a look –

    Q. With reference to the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), consider the following statements:

    1. It is aimed at generating self-employment opportunities in the farm sector.

    2. Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) is the nodal agency at the national level.

    3. It is being implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    a. 1 and 2 only

    b. 2 only

    c. 1 and 3 only

    d. All of them

    Now, UPSC has asked multiple questions on the basic economic functioning and schemes of the economy. You can’t afford to err on a probable question that may be asked on similar lines.

    4. Is the test really BASIC?

    Framing random questions irrespective of the difficulty level of the tests is like serving the same wine in different bottles. Have a look –

    Q. Which of the following are included under Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs)

    1. Hedge Fund

    2. Angel Fund

    3. Debt Fund

    4. Mutual Fund

    Which of the above statements is/are correct?

    a. 1, 2 and 3 only

    b. 2, 3 and 4 only

    c. 1, 3 and 4 only

    d. 1, 2 and 4 only

    The motive to incorporate such questions in the basic test is to garner a general idea of the topics before you as an aspirant are mentally ready to face the advanced tests.

    5. Conceptual vs Factual Categorisation:

    It lets you realise your comparative strength in different types of questions. Have a look –

    Q. “Partial Credit Enhancement”, sometimes mentioned in the news, refers to:

    a. Increasing the Credit uptake from Banks for Infrastructure companies.

    b. Enhancing the credit rating of the bonds and enabling the issuer to access funds on better terms.

    c. Restructuring the non-performing assets accounts to make them financially viable.

    d. None of the above

    This is a basic Conceptual question. If you get this wrong, you need to rework the concepts of Monetary Dynamics and Bond Market which are an important aspects of Economy Syllabus.

    So come be a part of our “UPSC Enigma” Breaking Endeavour. Like Great Britain, we shall emerge VICTORIOUS.

    Click here to enrol for the Prime Prelims TS 2021

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