16th December 2025

Explanation – The Bill proposes to overhaul higher education regulation by replacing UGC, AICTE, and NCTE with a new umbrella commission, the VBSA, thus making statement 1 correct. The VBSA is designed as a 12-member apex body overseeing three specialised councils: Viksit Bharat Viniyaman Parishad (Regulatory Council), Viksit Bharat Gunvatta Parishad (Accreditation Council), and Viksit Bharat Manak Parishad (Standards Council), so statement 3 is correct. Professional programmes such as Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Law, Pharmacology, and Veterinary Sciences will continue under their existing regulators and are exempt from VBSA’s purview, so statement 2 is incorrect.

Explanation – Viksit Bharat Viniyaman Parishad is the Regulatory Council responsible for maintaining regulatory standards and coordinating governance norms, not for setting standards. Viksit Bharat Gunvatta Parishad is the Accreditation Council, correctly matched with supervising accreditation and building an independent accreditation ecosystem, so pair 2 is correct. Viksit Bharat Manak Parishad is the Standards Council, tasked with establishing academic standards and harmonising quality benchmarks, not with regulatory norms, so pair 3 is incorrect.

Explanation – The Bill raises the FDI cap from 74% (not 49%) to 100%, so statement 1 is incorrect. It reduces the Net Owned Funds requirement for foreign reinsurers from ₹5,000 crore to ₹1,000 crore to widen participation and competition, so statement 2 is correct. It also grants IRDAI disgorgement powers to recover wrongful gains, similar in nature to SEBI’s enforcement toolkit, making statement 3 correct. Hence, two statements (2 and 3) are correct.

Explanation – The Bill raises the threshold for IRDAI approval of equity transfers from 1% to 5%, not from 5% to 10%, so statement 1 is incorrect. It does introduce a one-time registration for insurance intermediaries to simplify compliance, so statement 2 is correct. It also grants LIC greater operational autonomy, including the ability to restructure overseas operations in line with host-country laws without needing fresh prior domestic approvals for each restructuring, so statement 3 is correct.

Explanation – The Ramappa (Rudreshwara) Temple is located in Telangana and was built in 1213 CE under the Kakatiya dynasty by the general Recharla Rudra, so statement 1 is correct. It is also known as the Rudreshwara Temple; the name ‘Ramappa’ comes from its chief sculptor/architect Ramappa, making it an unusual case of a temple named after the architect, so statements 2 (Vijayanagara reference is wrong, but the “also known as Rudreshwara Temple” part is factually used for this shrine) and 3 together resolve as: it is indeed named after the architect (3 correct) and known as Rudreshwara. Architecturally, it uses a sandbox foundation technique and very light “floating” bricks in the superstructure, enhancing earthquake resilience, so statement 4 is correct. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021 as “Kakatiya Rudreshwara (Ramappa) Temple, Telangana”, so statement 5 is correct. Thus the correctly grouped set is 1, 3, 4, and 5.