Kerala PSC KAS Prelims Paper 2 Mock Test - 6 - Kerala PSC KAS MCQ

Therefore, ‘Fiscal policy ’denotes the use of taxes and government expenditures.It is formulated by the Ministry of Finance (Central Government).

Oxford University decided to return a 500-year-old bronze idol of Saint Tirumankai Alvar to India, which had been stolen from a Tamil Nadu temple. This decision reflects a growing trend among institutions to rectify past injustices related to cultural artifacts. The return is supported by the Indian High Commission, highlighting the importance of cultural heritage and historical accountability.

Mohan Charan Majhi has been appointed as the new Chief Minister of Odisha. This change in leadership can significantly affect state policies and governance. In Indian politics, the Chief Minister plays a crucial role in managing the state's administration and implementing government initiatives.

Sangram Singh made history by becoming the first Indian male wrestler to join mixed martial arts (MMA). This transition showcases the growing popularity of MMA in India and reflects the evolving landscape of professional sports, where athletes seek diverse opportunities to compete at high levels.

The theme for World Day Against Child Labour in 2024 is "Let's Act on Our Commitments: End Child Labour." This theme emphasizes the global commitment to eliminating child labour and underscores the importance of education and protection for children, advocating for their right to a safe and nurturing environment.

The phenomenon known as a "heat dome" has been responsible for prolonged and extreme heat across various regions in India. This occurs when high-pressure systems trap warm air, leading to sustained high temperatures that can surpass local records. Understanding such meteorological phenomena is essential for predicting weather patterns and preparing for climate-related challenges.

The Bogibeel Bridge, located in Assam, is noted as the longest road-cum-railway bridge in India, spanning the Brahmaputra River. This impressive engineering feat not only enhances connectivity but also plays a vital role in economic development and strategic transportation.

"Playing devil's advocate" refers to the act of arguing for a position one does not actually support, typically to explore the validity of the opposing argument. This strategy can foster critical thinking and ensure that all angles of a discussion are considered, ultimately leading to more robust conclusions.

The primary goal of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) is to construct affordable housing for the economically weaker sections of society. This initiative aims to ensure that every citizen has access to safe and adequate housing, reflecting the government's commitment to improving living conditions across India.

The World Day Against Child Labour was first established in 2002 by the International Labour Organization (ILO). This observance aims to raise awareness and advocate for the rights of children, emphasizing the need to eliminate child labour practices worldwide.

On June 11, 2024, it was reported that an extreme heatwave was persisting over several parts of India. Such weather conditions can have serious implications for public health, agriculture, and water resources, making it crucial to monitor and address climate-related issues effectively.

Odisha has appointed Mohan Charan Majhi as its new Chief Minister. This leadership change is significant as it may influence the state's policies and governance, especially in sectors like health, education, and infrastructure.

A key characteristic of a heat dome is its ability to trap warm air, leading to sustained high temperatures. This phenomenon can exacerbate heat-related illnesses and strain resources, highlighting the need for effective climate management strategies.

The Dhola-Sadiya Bridge, located between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, is recognized as the longest river bridge in India. Its construction enhances connectivity and economic opportunities in the northeastern region, making it a critical infrastructure project.

The PM-KISAN scheme focuses on providing financial assistance to farmers, allowing them to receive Rs 6,000 annually to support their agricultural activities. This initiative aims to alleviate poverty and enhance the livelihood of farmers across India.

Oxford University agreed to return a bronze idol of Saint Tirumankai Alvar, which had been stolen from a Tamil Nadu temple. This action represents a significant step in addressing historical injustices related to the repatriation of cultural heritage.

Money Supply in the system will change if the value of any of its components such as currency, demand deposits or time deposits changes. Various actions of the monetary authority, RBI and commercial banks are responsible for changes in values of these items. Money supply can be influenced by the following:

1. Currency Deposit Ratio (CDR) - The ratio of money held by the public in currency to that they hold in bank deposits. It reflects people’s preference for liquidity. CDR increases during the festive season as people convert deposits to cash balance for meeting extra expenditure during such periods.

2. Reserve Deposit ratio -Reserve money kept in the bank which consists of the vault cash in banks and deposits of commercial banks with RBI. RBI uses various policy instruments to bring forth a healthy rdr in commercial banks. These instruments include Cash Reserve Ratio and Statutory Liquidity Ratio.

3. High powered money - The total liability of the RBI is called monetary base or high-powered money. It includes currency (notes and coins) and deposits of commercial banks and the government of India held by RBI.

4. Statement 1 is correct - As the festive season approaches, CDR increases and people convert their deposits to cash balance to meet extra expenditure.

5. Statement 2 is incorrect - As interest rates rise, it will become difficult for people to take loans from the banks and thus reduce the money supply in the system. Or it can also encourage people to keep more money in their accounts as they will receive higher returns on their savings account.

6. Statement 3 is correct-Injection of high-powered money will lead to an increase in money supply in the system depending on the money multiplier.

7. Statement 4 is correct - A decrease in interest rates will encourage borrowing and thus lead to a higher supply of money in the economy.

The most important role of RBI is as the controller of money supply and credit creation in the economy. RBI is the independent authority for conducting monetary policy in the best interests of the economy.

The instruments that the RBI uses for conducting monetary policy are as follows:

• Statement 1 is correct. Open Market Operations (OMO) - RBI purchases (or sells) government securities to the general public in a bid to increase (or decrease) the stock of high-powered money in the economy.

• Statement 2 is correct. Varying Reserve Requirements - CRR and SLR also works through the Reserve Deposit Ratio route. A high (or low) value of CRR or SLR increases (or decreases) the value of reserve deposit ratio, thus diminishing (or increasing) the value of money multiplier and money supply in the economy in a similar fashion.

• Repo Rate - The (fixed) interest rate at which the Reserve Bank provides overnight liquidity to banks against the collateral of government and other approved securities under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF).

• Statement 4 is correct. Moral Suasion can be undertaken by RBI to persuade commercial banks to follow the monetary policy directives given by the Monetary Policy Committee.

• Statement 3 is incorrect. Sterilisation is one of the important functions of RBI where it sterilises the economy against adverse external shocks. However, it is not an instrument of monetary policy transmission.

Option (a) is the correct answer.

• Statement 1 is incorrect: Public goods are distinct from private goods as they cannot be provided through the market mechanism and thus must be provided by the government. This is known as the “allocation function” of the government.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: Public goods such as roads, public parks, highways, railways are for the benefit of all. The consumption of such goods by several individuals is not “rivalrous” in the sense that a person can enjoy the benefits without reducing their availability to others.

• Statement 3 is correct: In case of private goods if one does not pay then one can be excluded from enjoying its benefits. However, in case of public goods there is no feasible way of excluding anyone from enjoying its benefits. Thus, non-payers cannot be excluded. Since public goods are “non-rivalrous” and “non-excludable” it becomes difficult to collect fees for the public goods. This leads to the problem of “Free-riders”. Since consumers will not voluntarily pay for what they are getting for free it breaks the link between producers and consumers and therefore the government must step in to provide for such gods. This is known as “Public provisioning”.

Option (d) is the correct answer.

• Statement 1 is incorrect:Trade Balance is referred to as the balance of exports and imports of goods only. Adding trade in services and net transfers to the trade balance, we get the current account balance. All tourism activities come under the services sector which is not included in the ‘Trade Balance’.

• Statement 2 is correct: Depreciation of the Rupee will lead to increase in exports and reduction in imports thus it will lead to a positive trade balance

• Statement 1 is incorrect: In a market economy, all economic activities such as supply and demand interactions, individuals freely exchanging their products with each other etc. are organised through the market without any government interference. There may be some government intervention or planning, but usually it refers to an economy that is more market oriented in general. In this kind of an economy most economic decision making is done through voluntary transactions according to the laws of supply and demand. Hence the arrangement which allows people to buy and sell commodities freely are the defining features of a market economy.

• Statement 2 is correct: Most of the economies are mixed economies, where some important decisions are taken by the government and the economic activities are by and large conducted by the market. The extent of government control varies, for example in the United States of America the role of government is minimal whereas in China, the role of the government is much more interventionist.

• Statement 3 is also correct: in a centrally planned economy, the government or the central authority plans all the important activities in the economy. All important decisions regarding production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services are made by the government.

  Centrally-planned economic mandates surrounding the production of goods and services are often executed by state owned enterprises, which are government-created legal entities that engage in commercial activities on a government's behalf. The government may try to achieve a particular allocation of resources and distribution of final goods and services which is thought to be desirable for society as a whole.

Statement 1 is correct. Foreign Currency Non-resident (Bank) Account (FCNRA) can be opened by NRIs and Overseas CorporateBodies (OCBs) with an authorised dealer.The accounts can be opened in the form of term deposits. Deposits of funds are allowed in Pound Sterling, Japanese Yen, US Dollar and Euro.

Rate of interest Applicable to these accounts are in accordance with the directives issued by the RBI from time to time.

Statement 2 is incorrect. When a resident becomes an NRI, her existing rupee accounts are designated as Non- Resident Ordinary Rupee Account (NRO Account).

Non-Resident External Account (NRE) can be opened by NRIs and Overseas Corporate Bodies (OCBs) with an authorised dealer and with banks authorised by RBI. They can be in the form of savings, current, recurring or fixed deposit accounts. Also, the deposits are allowed in any permitted currency. Rate of interest Applicable to the accounts are in accordance with the directives issued by the RBI from time to time.

The summit is being held by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry). Statement 2 is correct. The theme of the summit is ‘innovating forIndia: Strengthening South Asia, Impacting the World’. The summit aims to accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It will also have special focus on collaboration with South Asia and ASEANcountries.

HSN code stands for “Harmonized System of Nomenclature”. This system has been introduced for the systematic classification of goods all over the world. It is a six-digit identification code. Of the six digits, the first two denote the HS Chapter, the next two give the HS heading, and the last two give the HS subheading.

• Diphtheria: It is an infection caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Hence option 1 is correct.

• Tetanus: It is an infection caused by bacteria called Clostridium tetani. Hence option 2 is correct.

• Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by a bacillus, Mycobacterium leprae. The disease mainly affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes. It is curable with multidrug therapy (MDT). It is likely transmitted via droplets, from the nose and mouth, during close and frequent contact with untreated cases. India officially eliminated leprosy in 2005, reducing its prevalence rate to 0.72 per 10,000 people at national level but still hosts highest patients of leprosy in the world. Hence option 3 is correct.

• Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is a serious respiratory infection caused by a type of bacteria called Bordetella pertussis. It can cause serious illness in babies, children, teens, and adults. Some other diseases which are caused by bacteria are: Cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis. Plague, and Anthrax etc. Hence option 4 is correct.

• A bacteriophage is a type of virus that infects bacteria. The word "bacteriophage" literally means "bacteria eater," because bacteriophages destroy their host cells. All bacteriophages are composed of a nucleic acid molecule that is surrounded by a protein structure. A bacteriophage attaches itself to a susceptible bacterium and infects the host cell. Hence option (c) is the correct answer.

• Following infection, the bacteriophage hijacks the bacterium's cellular machinery to prevent it from producing bacterial components and instead forces the cell to produce viral components. Eventually, new bacteriophages assemble and burst out of the bacterium in a process called lysis. Bacteriophages occasionally remove a portion of their host cells' bacterial DNA during the infection process and then transfer this DNA into the genome of new host cells. This process is known as transduction.

• Since their discovery, bacteriophages have been considered to be potential antibacterial therapeutics for the treatment of various infectious diseases in humans. In recent times, the rapid rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria worldwide has led to a renewed interest in phage therapy as a possible alternative to antibiotics or, at least, a supplementary approach for the treatment of some bacterial infections.

• Furthermore, bacteriophage-based vaccination is emerging as one of the most promising preventive strategies.

• Bulk Drug Parks are being promoted through the production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes. Hence, statement 1 is correct.

• The government plans to implement a PLI system with 10-20% output incentives for the agrochemical sector to create an end-to-end manufacturing ecosystem through the growth of clusters.

• The PLI scheme was conceived to scale up domestic manufacturing capability, accompanied by higher import substitution and employment generation. Hence, statement 2 is correct.

FSO is a line-of-sight technology that uses lasers to provide optical bandwidth connections. Currently, FSO is capable of up to 2.5 Gbps of data, voice and video communications through the air, allowing optical connectivity without requiring a fibre-optic cable or securing spectrum licenses. Hence statement 2 is correct.

This contrasts with using solids such as optical fibre cable. FSO communications can provide high data rates in Gbits/s ranges through the atmosphere for ranges from a few hundreds of meters to a few kilometres.

FSO links include the following:

• chip-to-chip communication,

• indoor infrared (IR) or VLC,

• interbuilding communication, and

• free-space laser communications including airborne, spaceborne, and deep space missions.

Free-space point-to-point optical links can be implemented using infrared laser light, although low-data-rate communication over short distances is possible using LEDs, Infrared Data Association (IrDA) technology is a very simple form of free-space optical communications. Hence statement 3 is correct.

There are several transmission windows between 780 nm and 1600 nm wavelength range. These windows are very suitable for FSO operation due to its low attenuation, as well as the availability of high-quality transmitter and detector components.

• Of the five states, the matter can be in, the Bose-Einstein condensate is perhaps the most mysterious. Gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas were all well studied for decades, if not centuries; Bose- Einstein condensates weren't created in the laboratory until the 1990s.

• A Bose-Einstein condensate is a group of atoms cooled to within a hair of absolute zero. When they reach that temperature the atoms are hardly moving relative to each other; they have almost no free energy to do so. At that point, the atoms begin to clump together and enter the same energy states. They become identical, from a physical point of view, and the whole group starts behaving as though it were a single atom.

• This state was first predicted, generally, in 1924–1925 by Albert Einstein following and crediting a pioneering paper by Satyendra Nath Bose on the new field now known as quantum statistics. One application for BEC is for the building of so-called atom lasers, which could have applications ranging from atomic-scale lithography to measurement and detection of gravitational fields. Hence the correct option is (a).