Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)

Explanation

MDR (Merchant Discount Rate) is indeed a fee charged to merchants by their acquiring bank or payment service provider as a percentage of the transaction value, to cover the cost of processing digital payments — this is its standard definition and mechanism. India's zero-MDR policy, announced in the Union Budget 2020, waived MDR on UPI and RuPay debit card transactions for businesses above a certain turnover threshold, on the policy rationale that building a digitally inclusive payments ecosystem and boosting adoption takes precedence over collecting fees from merchants. The cost of maintaining the UPI infrastructure is instead borne through government compensation to banks and NPCI. Both statements correctly describe the mechanism and principle behind MDR and India's zero-MDR decision for UPI.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. Aadhaar-linked e-KYC is a core feature of PDS digital governance: it enables remote authentication of beneficiaries, weeds out ghost/duplicate entries, and reduces the burden on beneficiaries to physically visit fair price shops or government offices. This is the foundational rationale behind integrating Aadhaar with PDS — improving targeting and reducing leakage. Statement 2 is incorrect. Under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, the responsibility for identifying eligible households and maintaining the beneficiary list rests with the State Governments (and Union Territory administrations), not exclusively with the Central Government. The Central Government sets the overall allocation and norms, but States determine who appears on the ration card list. This division of responsibility is a defining feature of cooperative federalism in food security governance.

Explanation

Pair 1 is correctly matched: Chakshu is the feature on the Sanchar Saathi portal specifically designed to allow citizens to report suspected fraud communications — such as fake KYC alerts, impersonation of government or bank officials, and fraudulent investment or loan offers. Pair 2 is incorrectly matched: The Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) is the mechanism used to block and trace lost or stolen mobile handsets across all telecom operator networks — it is not an IMEI-based purchase-verification tool. IMEI verification to check a handset's genuineness before buying is a separate, distinct service on the portal. Confusing CEIR with the IMEI-verification service is a common error: CEIR uses IMEI as a technical identifier to track/block devices reported stolen, whereas the 'Know the genuineness of your mobile handset' service is a consumer-protection check before purchase. Pair 3 is correctly matched: Sanchar Saathi is indeed a citizen-centric initiative of the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.

Explanation

Under the Digital Agriculture Mission's Farmer ID (AgriStack) framework, each major agricultural service has a specific delivery problem the digital identity is meant to solve. For Kisan Credit Card and bank loans, the key problem is repeated document verification — banks demand the same documents repeatedly, and Farmer ID creates a verified, reusable digital profile that simplifies this process (Pair 1: correctly matched). For Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, the critical issue is crop-loss assessment and compensation disbursement: the Farmer ID enables transparent, verifiable assessment of crop damage and routes compensation directly to the farmer's bank account, cutting out opaque intermediary processes (Pair 2: correctly matched). For MSP procurement, however, the core problem is the role of intermediaries in the procurement chain who siphon value away from farmers — Farmer ID is designed to eliminate these intermediaries and ensure farmers receive the full market support price for their produce. Pair 3 incorrectly describes the MSP function as 'direct payment of insurance premia,' which conflates it with PMFBY's insurance disbursement mechanism. MSP procurement and PMFBY each solve a structurally different delivery failure, and a sound understanding of AgriStack requires distinguishing them.

Explanation

IATA's One ID initiative is a global industry standard designed to create a seamless, identity-based travel experience across airlines and airports — enabling passengers to move through touchpoints without repeatedly presenting physical documents. This is correctly described in Pair 1. ICAO's Public Key Directory (PKD) is the international multilateral repository through which participating states upload and share the cryptographic keys needed to validate the digital signatures embedded in e-passport chips; any reader at an airport worldwide can use the PKD to confirm that a chip-based credential is genuine and unaltered — Pair 2 is correctly matched. Pair 3, however, is incorrect on a fundamental architectural point: the Digi Yatra system is explicitly designed on a decentralised, device-side storage model. Passenger credentials (biometrics and e-passport-derived data) are stored in a wallet on the passenger's own smartphone, not on a centralised government or airport server. This consent-based, privacy-preserving design — where the passenger controls what is shared, with whom, and for what purpose — is a defining feature of India's Digital Public Infrastructure identity approach, distinct from centralised identity architectures.

Explanation

A Verifiable Credential (VC) is a W3C-standard construct — a cryptographically signed digital attestation that the holder keeps in their own device wallet. The key feature is that the credential is device-resident and user-controlled, not held by a centralised government server; this is precisely what makes the model 'self-sovereign.' NFC (Near Field Communication) is a short-range radio-frequency technology used to read the encrypted chip in an e-passport; this chip contains biographic data and a digital signature issued by the issuing government, allowing software to verify that the passport has not been tampered with. Both pairs 1 and 2 are therefore correctly described. Pair 3, however, inverts the defining principle of self-sovereign identity (SSI). Under SSI, the user — not a central authority — controls and selectively discloses their identity data. A model in which a central authority manages and shares user data on the user's behalf is the traditional federated-identity or centralised model, which is the conceptual opposite of SSI. Because pair 3 mischaracterises SSI as a centralised architecture, it is incorrectly matched, making '1 and 2 only' the correct answer.

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 correct. Jeevan Pramaan (Digital Life Certificate) is an Aadhaar-based digital service that enables pensioners to generate a life certificate using biometric authentication. The system evolved from conventional paper certificates to fingerprint-based biometric authentication and then to face authentication, specifically to address the difficulty many elderly pensioners face with fingerprint scanners. The face authentication mode allows a pensioner to generate the certificate using just a smartphone camera, eliminating the need to visit a bank branch or government office. Statement 2 is incorrect. Face authentication under the Jeevan Pramaan system is powered by UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India), which maintains the Aadhaar biometric database. NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) is a separate entity that manages retail payment systems such as UPI and RuPay; it has no role in Aadhaar biometric authentication for life certificates. Attributing this function to NPCI is a classic near-miss institutional confusion. Statement 3 is correct. The Jeevan Pramaan system is a textbook example of India's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) model: a government-created identity utility (Aadhaar/UIDAI) is used as the authentication layer to deliver a targeted welfare service (pension life certification) to citizens through their mobile devices, removing intermediaries and reducing physical friction. This embodies the DPI principle of using open, interoperable identity infrastructure for inclusive service delivery.

Explanation

Pair 1 is correctly matched: Aadhaar Face Authentication, accessed via the Jeevan Pramaan portal and mobile application, allows a pensioner to authenticate their life certificate using the front camera of a smartphone. This is specifically designed to overcome the problem of biometric (fingerprint) degradation in elderly and super-senior pensioners — no external biometric reader is needed. Pair 2 is correctly matched: Common Service Centres (CSCs) are the government's last-mile digital delivery infrastructure under the Digital India programme, and they function as physical access points for citizens — especially the digitally excluded — to avail e-governance services including DLC generation. Pair 3 is incorrectly matched: India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) is a payments bank under the Department of Posts, Ministry of Communications — not under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Moreover, in the DLC ecosystem, IPPB acts as a partner banking channel (a last-mile facilitator alongside CSCs and SPARSH Service Centres), NOT as the nodal agency for campaign coordination. The nodal coordination of nationwide DLC campaigns is done by the Department of Pension & Pensioners' Welfare (DoP&PW) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 is the foundational statute governing payment and settlement systems in India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is the statutory regulator under this Act — it authorises and oversees payment system operators, including NPCI. NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) is an umbrella organisation for retail payment systems but functions under the regulatory oversight of the RBI within the PSS Act framework. Statement 2 is also correct. MDR (Merchant Discount Rate) is the charge borne by the merchant — not the customer — for accepting digital payments. It is a percentage of the transaction value that is shared among the acquiring bank, the issuing bank, and the payment network. The key conceptual distinction is that MDR is a cost on the merchant side of the transaction; it is structurally separate from any fee that might be levied on the consumer making the payment. This distinction is central to the policy debate around UPI charges: the government's stated position is that consumers will never be charged, while any future MDR under the amended PSS Act would apply only to a limited category of merchant transactions.