Solution (c)

Explanation:

CPI for Urban Non-manual Employees, CPI (UNME)

• An urban non-manual employee is defined as one who derives 50 per cent or more of his or her income from gainful employment on non-manual work in the urban non-agricultural sector. 
• The current CPI (UNME) series with base 1984-85, introduced in November 1987, derives the weighting pattern from the family living survey conducted during 1982-83 in 59 selected urban centres. 
• Centres were selected keeping in view, (a) concentration of the UNME population at the centre, (b) inclusion of State capital cities, and (c) regional representation. 
• The centres were allocated to different States broadly in proportion to their 1981 urban population with the limitation that not more than five centres were allotted to any State. 
• For compilation of CPI (UNME), retail prices in respect of the selected items and services from selected markets in the 59 centres are collected by FOD on a monthly basis. 

• The index is being released by CSO with a time lag of about two weeks. 

• Some of the State Governments, public and private sector undertakings, foreign embassies, etc. are making use of this index for purposes of regulating Dearness Allowance. 
• The index is also used for computing the advance tax liability of tax payers from capital gains by the Central Board of Direct Taxes.

Article reference: Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (2016=100) –January, 2021 depicts downward trend

Solution (b)

Explanation:

The Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021

The rules, which categorise intermediaries as social media intermediary and significant social media intermediary based on number of users, said significant social media intermediaries providing messaging services would “enable the identification of the first originator of the information. (So, statement 1 is incorrect)

On receiving a court order or being notified by the appropriate government agency, an intermediary will need to remove or disable access to information any unlawful information “as early as possible, but in no case later than 36 hours”. (So, Statement 2 is correct)

The intermediary will also have to provide information or assistance to authorised government agency for “investigative or protective or cyber security activities, for the purposes of verification of identity, or for the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution, of offences under any law for the time being in force, or for cyber security incidents” within 72 hours of the receipt of an order.

 Such an order would “only be passed for the purposes of 

• prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of an offence related to the sovereignty and integrity of India, 
• the security of the State, 
• friendly relations with foreign States, or 
• public order, or 
• Of incitement to an offence relating to the above or in relation with rape, sexually explicit material or child sexual abuse material, punishable with imprisonment for a term of not less than five years.”

The intermediaries need to appoint a Grievance Officer to deal with complaints and share the name and contact details of such an officer

Article reference: Govt announces new social media rules to curb its misuse 

Solution (d)

Explanation

Statement 1: Sovereign gold bonds are issued by the RBI on behalf of the government. They are government securities denominated in grams of gold. They are substitutes for holding physical gold. (Hence, statement 1 is incorrect)

Statement 2: The Bonds is restricted for sale to resident individuals, Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs), Trusts, Universities and Charitable Institutions. So NRIs can’t invest in Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme. (Hence, Statement 2 is incorrect)

Statement 3: It is tax efficient as no capital gains is charged in case of redemption on maturity. (Hence, Statement 3 is incorrect)

Basics about Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme

• The sovereign gold bond was introduced by the Government in 2015.
• Government introduced these bonds to help reduce India’s over dependence on gold imports.
• The move was also aimed at changing the habits of Indians from saving in physical form of gold to a paper form with Sovereign backing.
• The bonds will be denominated in multiples of gram(s) of gold with a basic unit of 1 gram. The tenor will be for a period of 8 years with exit option from the 5th year to be exercised on the interest payment dates.
• Bonds can be used as collateral for loans. The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is to be set equal to ordinary gold loan mandated by the Reserve Bank from time to time.

Article link: Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme 2020-21 

Solution (b)

Explanation – Base Year of Index of Eight Core Industries is 2011-12. Weight of Electricity is 19.85% while fertiliser’s weight is 2.62%.

Basics 

Core Sector Industries

• The eight core sector industries include coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity
• The eight core industries comprise 40.27% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
• The eight Core Industries in decreasing order of their weightage: Refinery Products> Electricity> Steel> Coal> Crude Oil> Natural Gas> Cement> Fertilizers.

Article link: Eight core industries’ output up 0.1% in January 

Solution (c)

In the quest for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, Indian Army has developed a simple and secure messaging application named the “Secure Application for Internet (SAI)”.  The application supports end to end secure voice, text and video calling services for Android platform over internet.  The model is similar to commercially available messaging applications like Whatsapp, Telegram, SAMVAD and GIMS and utilises end to end encryption messaging protocol.  SAI scores over on security features with local in-house servers and coding which can be tweaked as per requirements.

The application has been vetted by CERT-in empaneled auditor and Army Cyber Group.  SAI will be utilised pan Army to facilitate secure messaging within the service.

Article link:  Army likely to start using SAI for internal communications from April 1