Indian Economy is the part of the general knowledge paper that many aspirants fear, yet most of the questions asked in NDA, CDS, AFCAT, UPSC Civil Services, SSC and state PSC exams come from a fixed set of basic concepts. What GDP and national income mean, how the Reserve Bank of India controls money, how the Budget and GST work, and which institutions and schemes shape the economy are asked again and again. Once these basics are clear, economy becomes one of the most scoring sections.
This article brings together 100 of the most important Indian Economy GK questions on these high-frequency themes. The set is divided into four parts: Basic Concepts, National Income and Planning (questions 1 to 25), Money, Banking, RBI and Inflation (26 to 50), Fiscal Policy, Budget and Taxation (51 to 75), and the External Sector, International Organisations, Agriculture, Industry and Schemes (76 to 100). It follows our Indian History, Indian Geography and Indian Polity sets, so you can revise all four subjects in the same way.
The questions focus on stable, textbook facts rather than numbers that change every few months. Figures such as the latest GDP growth rate, the current repo rate or the size of foreign exchange reserves keep changing, so check them in recent current affairs just before your exam. Read each question, try to recall the answer, and only then read the short explanation, which adds the related fact that examiners often turn into a second question.
Basic Concepts, National Income and Planning (Questions 1 to 25)
1. Who is known as the father of economics?
Answer: Adam Smith. His book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published in 1776 and argued for free markets guided by an “invisible hand”.
2. Who is regarded as the father of Indian planning?
Answer: Sir M. Visvesvaraya. His book Planned Economy for India (1934) was one of the first proposals for planned development. The Bombay Plan of 1944 was prepared by leading industrialists.
3. What type of economy does India have?
Answer: A mixed economy. In a mixed economy the public sector and the private sector work side by side. India adopted this model through the Industrial Policy Resolutions of 1948 and 1956.
4. Which activities form the primary sector of an economy?
Answer: Agriculture and allied activities such as forestry and fishing, along with mining. These activities use natural resources directly. The secondary sector covers manufacturing and construction, and the tertiary sector covers services such as trade, transport, banking and communication.
5. Which sector contributes the largest share to India’s GDP?
Answer: The tertiary (services) sector. Services account for more than half of India’s gross value added, which is why India is often described as a services-led economy.
6. Which sector still employs the largest share of India’s workforce?
Answer: Agriculture and allied activities (primary sector). Recent Periodic Labour Force Survey rounds show that close to half of India’s workers depend on agriculture, even though its share in GDP is much smaller. This gap points to disguised unemployment in farming.
7. What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?
Answer: The market value of all final goods and services produced within the domestic territory of a country in a given period, usually a year. Only final goods are counted, so that intermediate goods are not counted twice. GDP measures production inside the country, whoever owns the factors of production.
8. How is Gross National Product (GNP) obtained from GDP?
Answer: GNP = GDP + net factor income from abroad. Net factor income from abroad is the income earned by residents from abroad minus the income earned by non-residents within the country. GNP therefore measures the output of a country’s residents.
9. What is Net National Product (NNP)?
Answer: GNP minus depreciation. Depreciation, also called consumption of fixed capital, is the wear and tear of machines and buildings during production. NNP shows the net output available to the economy.
10. Which aggregate is treated as the national income of a country?
Answer: NNP at factor cost. NNP at factor cost equals NNP at market prices minus net indirect taxes (indirect taxes minus subsidies). It is the total income earned by the factors of production.
11. Which organisation compiles national income estimates in India?
Answer: National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The NSO was formed in 2019 by merging the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO).
12. Who made the first estimate of India’s national income?
Answer: Dadabhai Naoroji. He estimated it for 1867–68 in his work later published as Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, where he also put forward the Drain Theory. The first scientific estimate was made by V.K.R.V. Rao for 1931–32.
13. What is per capita income?
Answer: National income divided by the total population of the country. It shows the average income per person and is used to compare living standards, though it does not show how income is distributed.
14. What is the difference between nominal GDP and real GDP?
Answer: Nominal GDP is measured at current prices, while real GDP is measured at constant prices of a base year. Real GDP removes the effect of price changes and so shows the true change in output. The ratio of nominal to real GDP, multiplied by 100, is the GDP deflator.
15. When was the Planning Commission of India set up?
Answer: 15 March 1950. It was set up by an executive resolution of the Government of India, not by the Constitution or an Act of Parliament, with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as its first chairman.
16. On which model was the First Five-Year Plan (1951–56) based?
Answer: The Harrod–Domar model. The First Plan gave top priority to agriculture, irrigation and power, as the country faced food shortages after Partition.
17. On which model was the Second Five-Year Plan (1956–61) based?
Answer: The Mahalanobis model. Prepared under P.C. Mahalanobis, it stressed rapid industrialisation with a focus on heavy and basic industries. Steel plants at Bhilai, Rourkela and Durgapur were set up in this period.
18. Which period of Indian planning is known as the “Plan Holiday”?
Answer: 1966 to 1969. After the Third Plan was hit by the wars of 1962 and 1965 and by severe droughts, three Annual Plans were followed before the Fourth Plan began in 1969.
19. Which government introduced the concept of a “Rolling Plan” in India?
Answer: The Janata Party government (1978–80). In a rolling plan the targets are reviewed and the plan is extended every year. The idea is associated with the economist Gunnar Myrdal.
20. What was the main objective of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007–12)?
Answer: Faster and more inclusive growth. The Twelfth Plan (2012–17) widened this to “faster, more sustainable and more inclusive growth”.
21. Which was the last Five-Year Plan in India?
Answer: The Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012–17). After it ended, the system of Five-Year Plans was discontinued. NITI Aayog now prepares long-term vision and strategy documents instead.
22. Which body approved the Five-Year Plans before they were finalised?
Answer: The National Development Council (NDC). The NDC was set up in 1952 and included the Prime Minister, Union Cabinet ministers and the Chief Ministers of all states, making planning a shared exercise of the Centre and the states.
23. When was NITI Aayog set up, and which body did it replace?
Answer: 1 January 2015, replacing the Planning Commission. NITI stands for National Institution for Transforming India. Like the Planning Commission, it was created by an executive resolution and is a policy think tank rather than a body that allocates funds.
24. Who is the chairperson of NITI Aayog?
Answer: The Prime Minister of India. Its Governing Council includes the Chief Ministers of all states and of Union Territories with legislatures, and the Lieutenant Governors of other Union Territories, which reflects the idea of cooperative federalism.
25. Which expert group’s method was used for the official 2011–12 poverty estimate of 21.9 per cent?
Answer: The Suresh Tendulkar Committee method. The Planning Commission released this estimate in 2013. The later C. Rangarajan expert group (2014) suggested a higher poverty line, but the Tendulkar figure remains the most quoted official estimate.
Money, Banking, RBI and Inflation (Questions 26 to 50)
26. When was the Reserve Bank of India established?
Answer: 1 April 1935. It was set up under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, on the recommendation of the Hilton Young Commission (Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance).
27. When was the Reserve Bank of India nationalised?
Answer: 1 January 1949. The RBI began as a shareholders’ bank. It became fully owned by the Government of India under the Reserve Bank (Transfer to Public Ownership) Act, 1948.
28. Where is the central office of the Reserve Bank of India located?
Answer: Mumbai. The RBI’s central office was first set up in Calcutta (Kolkata) and was moved permanently to Bombay (Mumbai) in 1937.
29. Who was the first Governor of the Reserve Bank of India?
Answer: Sir Osborne Smith. Sir C.D. Deshmukh, appointed in 1943, was the first Indian Governor of the RBI. He later became India’s Finance Minister.
30. Which currency note in India is issued by the Ministry of Finance and not by the RBI?
Answer: The one-rupee note. One-rupee notes carry the signature of the Finance Secretary, while all other notes carry the signature of the RBI Governor. Coins are minted by the Government of India and put into circulation through the RBI.
31. Which system does the RBI follow for issuing currency notes?
Answer: The Minimum Reserve System. Adopted in 1957, it requires the RBI to hold gold and foreign exchange reserves of at least ₹200 crore, of which gold must be worth at least ₹115 crore.
32. What is the repo rate?
Answer: The rate at which the RBI lends short-term funds to commercial banks against government securities. A higher repo rate makes borrowing costlier and helps control inflation, while a lower rate encourages credit and growth. The actual rate changes with each monetary policy review, so check the latest value before your exam.
33. Which facility replaced the fixed-rate reverse repo as the floor of the RBI’s liquidity corridor in April 2022?
Answer: The Standing Deposit Facility (SDF). Under the SDF the RBI can absorb surplus funds from banks without giving government securities in return. The reverse repo is the rate at which the RBI borrows from banks.
34. What is the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR)?
Answer: The share of a bank’s net demand and time liabilities that it must keep as cash with the RBI. Banks earn no interest on CRR balances. It is maintained under Section 42 of the RBI Act, 1934, and raising it reduces the money banks can lend.
35. What is the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR)?
Answer: The share of net demand and time liabilities that a bank must keep in liquid assets such as cash, gold and approved government securities. Unlike CRR, SLR assets are kept by the bank itself. SLR is prescribed under Section 24 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
36. What is “moral suasion” in monetary policy?
Answer: Persuading banks through advice, appeals and meetings to follow the central bank’s wishes, without legal compulsion. It is a qualitative (selective) credit control tool, along with margin requirements and credit rationing. CRR, SLR, repo rate and open market operations are quantitative tools.
37. Which body decides the policy repo rate in India?
Answer: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). Set up in 2016 under the amended RBI Act, the MPC has six members: three from the RBI, including the Governor who chairs it and has a casting vote, and three external members appointed by the Central Government.
38. What is the inflation target under India’s flexible inflation targeting framework?
Answer: 4 per cent CPI inflation, with a tolerance band of 2 per cent on either side (2 to 6 per cent). This target has applied since 2016. It is set by the Government of India in consultation with the RBI for five years at a time.
39. Which price index is used by the RBI as the main measure of inflation?
Answer: Consumer Price Index (Combined), or CPI-C. The RBI adopted CPI as its nominal anchor in 2014 on the recommendation of the Urjit Patel Committee. CPI is released by the NSO under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
40. Which office releases the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) in India?
Answer: The Office of the Economic Adviser, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry. WPI covers goods only and does not include services, which is one reason the RBI prefers CPI for policy.
41. What is stagflation?
Answer: A situation of high inflation combined with stagnant economic growth and high unemployment. The term became popular during the oil price shocks of the 1970s, when many economies faced rising prices and falling output at the same time.
42. What is disinflation?
Answer: A fall in the rate of inflation, where prices still rise but more slowly. It is different from deflation, which is an actual fall in the general price level. Examiners often test the difference between the two.
43. What is inflation caused by a rise in the cost of inputs such as wages, raw materials or fuel called?
Answer: Cost-push inflation. When prices rise because total demand exceeds the supply of goods and services, it is called demand-pull inflation.
44. When were 14 major commercial banks nationalised in India?
Answer: 19 July 1969. The nationalisation took place under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Six more private banks were nationalised in April 1980.
45. From which bank was the State Bank of India formed?
Answer: The Imperial Bank of India. SBI was formed on 1 July 1955 on the recommendation of the All India Rural Credit Survey Committee (Gorwala Committee), mainly to expand banking in rural areas.
46. Which is the apex institution for agriculture and rural development finance in India?
Answer: NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development). NABARD was set up on 12 July 1982 on the recommendation of the B. Sivaraman Committee (CRAFICARD). Its headquarters is in Mumbai.
47. When were Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) first set up in India?
Answer: 2 October 1975. They were set up on the recommendation of the Narasimham Working Group and later governed by the Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976. Their share capital is held by the Centre (50 per cent), the sponsor bank (35 per cent) and the state government (15 per cent).
48. Which body regulates the securities market in India?
Answer: Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). SEBI was set up in 1988 and received statutory powers under the SEBI Act, 1992. Its headquarters is in Mumbai.
49. Which committee recommended major banking sector reforms in India in 1991?
Answer: The Narasimham Committee (Committee on the Financial System). Headed by M. Narasimham, it recommended lower CRR and SLR, freer interest rates and entry of new private banks. A second Narasimham Committee on banking reforms reported in 1998.
50. Which measure of money supply is called “broad money”?
Answer: M3. M1 (narrow money) is currency with the public plus demand deposits with banks and other deposits with the RBI. M3 is M1 plus the time deposits of banks.
Fiscal Policy, Budget and Taxation (Questions 51 to 75)
51. Under which Article of the Constitution is the Union Budget presented as the “Annual Financial Statement”?
Answer: Article 112. The Constitution does not use the word “budget”. For the states, the Annual Financial Statement is presented under Article 202.
52. Who presented the first Union Budget of independent India?
Answer: R.K. Shanmukham Chetty. He presented it on 26 November 1947. The first Budget of the Republic of India was presented by John Mathai in 1950.
53. In which year was the Railway Budget merged with the Union Budget?
Answer: 2017 (Budget 2017–18). The Railway Budget had been presented separately since 1924 on the recommendation of the Acworth Committee. The merger followed the recommendation of a committee headed by Bibek Debroy.
54. Since which year has the Union Budget been presented on 1 February?
Answer: 2017. Earlier it was presented on the last working day of February. In 1999 the presentation time was also changed from 5 PM to 11 AM.
55. What is fiscal deficit?
Answer: Total expenditure minus the sum of revenue receipts and non-debt capital receipts. Fiscal deficit shows the total borrowing the government needs in a year, and it is the most watched measure of the government’s financial health.
56. What is revenue deficit?
Answer: Revenue expenditure minus revenue receipts. A revenue deficit means the government is borrowing to meet day-to-day expenses such as salaries, interest and subsidies rather than to create assets.
57. What is primary deficit?
Answer: Fiscal deficit minus interest payments. It shows how much of the government’s borrowing is needed for current spending other than paying interest on past loans.
58. Which Act lays down targets for reducing India’s fiscal deficit?
Answer: The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, 2003. It came into force in 2004. A review committee headed by N.K. Singh (2017) recommended using the debt-to-GDP ratio as the main anchor of fiscal policy.
59. Which Article of the Constitution provides for the Finance Commission?
Answer: Article 280. The President constitutes a Finance Commission every five years or earlier to recommend how taxes are shared between the Centre and the states. The first Finance Commission (1951) was headed by K.C. Neogy.
60. Who chaired the Sixteenth Finance Commission?
Answer: Arvind Panagariya. Its recommendations cover the five years from 2026–27 to 2030–31. The Fifteenth Finance Commission, chaired by N.K. Singh, had recommended a 41 per cent share for the states in the divisible pool of central taxes.
61. In which type of tax do the impact and the incidence fall on the same person?
Answer: A direct tax. Income tax and corporation tax are direct taxes because the person who pays them bears the burden. In indirect taxes such as GST, the burden is passed on to the consumer.
62. What is a progressive tax?
Answer: A tax in which the rate rises as the income or tax base rises. India’s income tax slabs are progressive. In a regressive tax, the burden falls more heavily on people with lower incomes.
63. When was the Goods and Services Tax (GST) introduced in India?
Answer: 1 July 2017. GST was made possible by the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, and replaced many central and state indirect taxes such as excise duty, service tax and VAT.
64. Which Article of the Constitution provides for the GST Council?
Answer: Article 279A. The Council is chaired by the Union Finance Minister. Decisions need a three-fourths majority of weighted votes, with the Centre holding one-third of the weight and the states together two-thirds.
65. What kind of tax is GST?
Answer: A destination-based, multi-stage tax on consumption. GST is collected at each stage of the supply chain with credit for tax already paid on inputs, and the revenue goes to the state where goods or services are finally consumed.
66. Which component of GST is levied on inter-state supplies?
Answer: IGST (Integrated Goods and Services Tax). IGST is levied and collected by the Centre and shared with the destination state. On supplies within a state, CGST and SGST are levied together.
67. Which was the first state to ratify the GST Constitution Amendment Bill?
Answer: Assam. Assam ratified it in August 2016. Ratification by at least half of the state legislatures was needed because the amendment affected the federal distribution of taxes.
68. Which item has been kept completely outside the scope of GST by the Constitution?
Answer: Alcoholic liquor for human consumption. Petroleum crude, petrol, diesel, natural gas and aviation turbine fuel are within the GST framework, but GST on them will apply only from a date recommended by the GST Council. Until then, central excise and state VAT continue on them.
69. Which body administers direct taxes in India?
Answer: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The CBDT works under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, under the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963. Indirect taxes are handled by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
70. Which Article of the Constitution provides for the Consolidated Fund of India?
Answer: Article 266. All revenues of the Union, loans raised by it and repayments received go into this fund. No money can be withdrawn from it without an appropriation made by Parliament.
71. Which Article of the Constitution provides for the Contingency Fund of India?
Answer: Article 267. The fund is placed at the disposal of the President to meet unforeseen expenditure, which is later approved by Parliament.
72. What is a “vote on account”?
Answer: A grant made by the Lok Sabha in advance to meet government expenses for part of the year until the full Budget is passed. It is provided for under Article 116. It is commonly used in an election year, when an interim Budget is presented.
73. What is zero-based budgeting?
Answer: A method in which every item of expenditure must be justified afresh from zero in each budget, instead of being based on the previous year’s spending. The technique was developed by Peter Pyhrr in the United States in the 1970s. It helps cut wasteful and outdated spending.
74. Since which year has the Union Budget included a Gender Budget Statement?
Answer: 2005–06. Gender budgeting shows how much of public spending is meant for the welfare of women and girls, and it is now presented with the Budget every year.
75. Which department of the Ministry of Finance manages disinvestment of government equity in public sector enterprises?
Answer: DIPAM (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management). Disinvestment means the sale of part or all of the government’s shares in public sector enterprises. The Department of Disinvestment was renamed DIPAM in 2016.
External Sector, International Organisations, Agriculture, Industry and Schemes (Questions 76 to 100)
76. What does the Balance of Payments (BoP) of a country record?
Answer: All economic transactions between the residents of the country and the rest of the world over a period. It has two main parts: the current account (trade in goods and services, income and transfers) and the capital account (investment, loans and other capital flows).
77. In which year did India launch its economic reforms of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG)?
Answer: 1991. The reforms began under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh after a severe balance of payments crisis.
78. On which account has the Indian rupee been fully convertible since August 1994?
Answer: The current account. India accepted the obligations of Article VIII of the IMF Articles of Agreement in August 1994. The rupee is still only partially convertible on the capital account.
79. Which Act replaced the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA)?
Answer: The Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999. FEMA came into force on 1 June 2000. It treats foreign exchange violations as civil offences, unlike FERA, which treated them as criminal offences.
80. Which institution holds and manages India’s foreign exchange reserves?
Answer: The Reserve Bank of India. The reserves are made up of foreign currency assets, gold, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and India’s reserve tranche position in the IMF. Their size changes every week, so check the latest figure in current affairs.
81. When was the World Trade Organization (WTO) established?
Answer: 1 January 1995. The WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1947. Its headquarters is in Geneva, and India is a founding member.
82. Which conference led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank?
Answer: The Bretton Woods Conference, 1944. It was held at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, USA. Both institutions are headquartered in Washington DC and are called the Bretton Woods twins.
83. Which organisation publishes the World Economic Outlook?
Answer: The International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF also publishes the Global Financial Stability Report. The World Development Report is published by the World Bank.
84. Which organisation publishes the Human Development Index (HDI)?
Answer: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI was first published in the Human Development Report of 1990. It was developed by Mahbub ul Haq with Amartya Sen and measures health (life expectancy), education and standard of living (GNI per capita).
85. Where is the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)?
Answer: Manila, Philippines. The ADB was set up in 1966 to promote economic development in Asia and the Pacific. India is a founding member.
86. Where is the headquarters of the New Development Bank set up by the BRICS countries?
Answer: Shanghai, China. The agreement to set it up was signed at the BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, in 2014. Its first president was K.V. Kamath of India.
87. Where is the headquarters of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)?
Answer: Beijing, China. The AIIB began operations in 2016 to finance infrastructure in Asia. India is a founding member and its second-largest shareholder after China.
88. Who is known as the father of the Green Revolution in India?
Answer: M.S. Swaminathan. The Green Revolution of the mid-1960s used high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, fertilisers and irrigation, mainly in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Norman Borlaug is called the father of the Green Revolution worldwide.
89. Who is known as the father of the White Revolution in India?
Answer: Dr Verghese Kurien. He led Operation Flood, launched in 1970 by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), which made India the world’s largest milk producer. National Milk Day is observed on 26 November, his birth anniversary.
90. The Blue Revolution in India is associated with which sector?
Answer: Fisheries. Other examples are the Yellow Revolution (oilseeds), the Golden Revolution (horticulture), the Pink Revolution (meat and poultry processing) and the Silver Revolution (eggs).
91. On whose recommendation does the Government of India announce Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for crops?
Answer: The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP). The CACP was set up in 1965 as the Agricultural Prices Commission and renamed in 1985. MSP gives farmers a guaranteed floor price for their produce.
92. In which cropping season are rice, maize and cotton mainly sown in India?
Answer: Kharif season. Kharif crops are sown with the onset of the south-west monsoon in June–July and harvested in September–October. Wheat, barley, gram and mustard are rabi crops sown in winter.
93. Which industrial policy is often called the “Economic Constitution of India”?
Answer: The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956. It divided industries into three schedules and gave the public sector the leading role in basic and strategic industries. It shaped Indian industry until the reforms of 1991.
94. Which index measures changes in the volume of industrial production in India?
Answer: The Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The IIP is released by the NSO. The eight core industries (coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity) make up about 40 per cent of its weight.
95. Which scheme was launched on 28 August 2014 to give every household access to a bank account?
Answer: Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). It is a national mission for financial inclusion that offers zero-balance savings accounts with a RuPay debit card and accident insurance cover.
96. When was the Make in India initiative launched?
Answer: 25 September 2014. It aims to make India a global manufacturing hub by encouraging investment and innovation. Its logo is a lion made of gear wheels.
97. Which scheme gives income support of ₹6,000 a year to eligible farmer families?
Answer: PM-KISAN (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi). Launched in February 2019, it pays the amount in three equal instalments directly into farmers’ bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer.
98. What are the loan categories under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana?
Answer: Shishu, Kishore and Tarun. Launched in April 2015, the scheme provides collateral-free loans to non-corporate micro and small enterprises. Shishu loans go up to ₹50,000, and a Tarun Plus category was later added for borrowers who repay Tarun loans.
99. Which department prepares the Economic Survey of India?
Answer: The Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, under the guidance of the Chief Economic Adviser. The Economic Survey reviews the economy over the past year and is usually presented in Parliament a day before the Union Budget. The first survey was presented for 1950–51.
100. When was the Startup India initiative launched?
Answer: 16 January 2016. It supports new businesses through easier compliance, tax benefits and funding support. Startups are recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
Quick Revision Tips
- Learn the national income family as one chain: GDP plus net factor income from abroad gives GNP, GNP minus depreciation gives NNP, and NNP at market prices minus net indirect taxes gives NNP at factor cost, which is national income. Most aggregate questions are a step in this chain.
- Keep the deficits apart with one line each: fiscal deficit is total borrowing, revenue deficit is revenue expenditure minus revenue receipts, and primary deficit is fiscal deficit minus interest payments. Questions often give a definition and ask you to name the deficit.
- Group RBI tools into quantitative ones (repo rate, reverse repo, CRR, SLR, open market operations, bank rate) and qualitative ones (margin requirements, credit rationing, moral suasion). Remember that CRR is kept with the RBI while SLR assets are kept by the bank itself.
- Link every institution to its year and headquarters: RBI 1935 (Mumbai), SBI 1955, NABARD 1982, SEBI 1988 and 1992 (Mumbai), WTO 1995 (Geneva), IMF and World Bank 1944 (Washington DC), ADB 1966 (Manila), NDB (Shanghai) and AIIB (Beijing). One table of this kind answers many questions.
- Treat numbers carefully. Static facts such as Articles, years and founders do not change, but growth rates, policy rates, tax slabs and scheme figures do. Revise the latest values from current affairs separately and never mix an old figure into a static answer.
Conclusion
Indian Economy rewards clear concepts more than memory alone. If you understand and can recall these 100 questions, you will have covered a large share of the static economy asked in NDA, CDS, AFCAT, UPSC, SSC and state PSC papers. Read this list alongside the NCERT books Indian Economic Development (Class 11) and Introductory Macroeconomics (Class 12), keep the Economic Survey and the Budget highlights for current figures, practise previous-year papers, and return to the sections where you made mistakes.
FAQs
1. How many Indian Economy questions are asked in NDA, CDS and AFCAT?
The number varies from paper to paper, so it is better not to prepare for a fixed count. Economy is a regular part of the NDA General Ability Test, the CDS General Knowledge paper and AFCAT general awareness, and it usually contributes several questions on basic concepts, banking, the Budget and current economic developments.
2. Is NCERT enough for Indian Economy GK?
NCERT books, especially Indian Economic Development for Class 11 and Introductory Macroeconomics for Class 12, are the most reliable base for the concepts used in competitive exams. For defence exams, NCERT plus a list like this one, previous-year papers and the Budget and Economic Survey highlights is usually enough.
3. Which topics of Indian Economy are most important for defence exams?
High-frequency areas include national income concepts, planning and NITI Aayog, the RBI and its monetary tools, inflation, banking institutions, the Budget and deficits, GST, the balance of payments, international economic organisations, agricultural revolutions and major government schemes. This article covers each of these areas.
4. How should I prepare for current economy questions?
Static concepts come from books, but current questions on growth rates, the policy repo rate, inflation figures and new schemes come from the news. Read monthly current affairs, note the latest Budget and RBI monetary policy decisions, and revise those numbers separately just before the exam.
5. Are these Indian Economy GK questions useful for UPSC and SSC as well?
Yes. The concepts here form the base of economy questions in the UPSC Civil Services preliminary exam, SSC CGL and CHSL, and state PSC exams. UPSC aspirants should build on them with a standard economy reference book and regular reading of the Economic Survey.
