UPSC Current Affairs Quiz, 5 November 2026

Explanation

Pair 1 is correctly matched: NPCI, as the system provider for UPI, has the liberty to determine the applicable MDR for transactions processed through its payment system, subject to RBI's overarching regulatory framework and applicable statutory prohibitions. This is consistent with NPCI's quasi-public, self-regulatory role within India's digital payments architecture under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. Pair 2 is correctly matched: Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 specifically exempts UPI transactions below ₹2,000 from any charges. This is the statutory basis on which NPCI structured the new MDR framework — the 0.4% MDR applies only to Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions above ₹2,000, keeping sub-₹2,000 transactions free as mandated by law. Pair 3 is incorrectly matched: MDR is NOT a statutory levy, tax, cess, fee, duty, or any imposition pursuant to legislative or fiscal delegation by Parliament or the Central Government. NPCI explicitly clarified in its Supreme Court affidavit that MDR is a 'charge' collected by system participants to recover the operational costs of running the payment infrastructure, and is distributed entirely among UPI ecosystem participants. This is a critical conceptual distinction — conflating MDR with a statutory levy would imply it requires fresh legislation, which NPCI specifically contested.

Explanation

Statement 1 is incorrect. While the 73rd Amendment inserted the Eleventh Schedule listing 29 subjects, it does not make the transfer of these functions a mandatory, justiciable obligation. The Amendment uses enabling language — it empowers States to devolve functions to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), but the actual devolution is discretionary and depends on State legislation. No court can compel a State to transfer any particular function from the Eleventh Schedule to PRIs, because the provision is not in the nature of an enforceable right. This is a critical constitutional distinction: the 73rd Amendment created a framework for devolution, not a guarantee of it. Statement 2 is correct. The People's Plan Campaign, most prominently executed in Kerala, exemplifies the participatory planning vision embedded in the 73rd Amendment. It involves gram sabhas and local bodies in identifying vulnerable households, preparing individual micro-plans, and converging resources of multiple government departments at the local level — precisely the kind of bottom-up, community-led development the Amendment envisaged. Statement 3 is correct. Articles 243G and 243W of the Constitution empower panchayats and urban local bodies respectively to prepare plans for economic development and social justice. However, both articles are explicitly subject to State legislation — the Constitution does not by itself vest these functions in LSGIs; it merely authorises State legislatures to do so. The actual extent of decentralisation therefore varies significantly across States depending on what their legislatures have chosen to devolve, a persistent gap in India's federal architecture.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. A core principle of tropical cyclone mechanics is that sea-surface warming provides greater thermal energy and moisture flux to the overlying atmosphere, which translates into higher wind speeds and intensified precipitation — a well-established relationship in cyclone science, also demonstrated by the Arnab study. Statement 2 is correct. The eyewall is the ring of deep convective thunderstorm clouds surrounding the eye; it is where the strongest sustained winds and the heaviest rainfall are concentrated in a tropical cyclone. Statement 3 is incorrect because it inverts the energy mechanism. The ocean — specifically the warm sea surface — is the primary energy source (latent heat via evaporation) for a tropical cyclone. Landfall cuts off this oceanic energy supply, which is precisely why cyclones weaken after moving over land, not because land provides energy. The statement wrongly attributes the sustaining energy source to the land surface.

Explanation

All three pairs are correctly matched. First, CPI (Rural) assigns a food and beverages weight of approximately 54%, which is notably higher than the food weight in CPI (Urban), consistent with the fact that food dominates rural consumption baskets — a structural feature corroborated by the NABARD survey finding that food accounts for over 53% of rural household spending. Second, the Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) does rely on household inflation-expectations surveys — such as the RBI's Inflation Expectations Survey of Households — as a forward-looking input in its policy deliberations, to judge whether inflation expectations are well-anchored around the 4% target. Third, under the amended RBI Act and the flexible inflation-targeting (FIT) framework adopted in India, the government has set the CPI-Combined inflation target at 4%, with an upper tolerance limit of 6% and a lower tolerance limit of 2% — that is, a symmetric band of ±2 percentage points around 4%.

Explanation

Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) is the apex statutory technical body that advises both Central and State Governments on technical questions arising from the Act's administration — Pair 1 is correctly matched. The Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC) is a coordinating body that recommends uniform administration of the Act across States and facilitates coordination between the Centre and State Licensing Authorities — Pair 2 is correctly matched. A Government Analyst, however, is a notified official whose function is to test drug samples and certify whether a drug is of standard quality or Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) — essentially a quality-testing and reporting role. It is the Central Licensing Approving Authority (CLAA/DCGI) and State Licensing Authorities, not Government Analysts, that issue manufacturing licences and approvals — Pair 3 is incorrectly matched. The proposed amendment to the Drugs Rules, 1945 makes the Government Analyst's NSQ report the trigger for immediate licence suspension, reinforcing that the Analyst's role is evidentiary/reporting, not licensing.