21st October 2024

Explanation: Statements 1 and 3 are correct. The PCMA 2006 does set the legal
marriage age at 18 for girls and 21 for boys, and the 2021 Amendment Bill seeks
to increase women's marriage age to 21. Statement 2 is incorrect as POCSO Act
2012 does not explicitly address child betrothals. Statement 4 is incorrect as the
prevalence of child marriage has decreased since the enactment of PCMA 2006,
not increased.

Explanation - BIMSTEC is an economic bloc that came into being on 6th June
1997 through the Bangkok Declaration. It aims to accelerate economic growth
and social progress among members across multiple sectors — trade,
technology, energy, transport, tourism and fisheries, agriculture, public health,
poverty alleviation, counter-terrorism, environment, culture, people to people
contact and climate change. Headquartered in Dhaka, BIMSTEC is an inter-
regional grouping that seeks to foster regional and economic cooperation among
nations in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal — India, Thailand,
Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. The BIMSTEC region is
home to roughly 22 per cent of the global population with a combined GDP of
over $2.7 trillion. Initially, the economic bloc was formed with four countries with
the acronym ‘BIST-EC’ (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic
Cooperation). With the entrance of Myanmar in 1997, the grouping was renamed
‘BIMST-EC’ (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic
Cooperation). Finally, with the entrance of Nepal and Bhutan at the 6th Ministerial
Meeting in 2004, the grouping was named Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-
Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). In 2018, India
aggressively pushed for the conclusion of a long-pending FTA among BIMSTEC
nations but differences between India and Thailand over market

Explanation - Kala-azar or visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a tropical disease
characterised by irregular fever, weight loss, anaemia and swelling of the spleen
and liver. It is caused by a protozoan Leishmania parasite and is transmitted to
humans by the bite of infected female sandflies. According to the World Health
Organisation (WHO), globally, about 7 to 10 lakh new cases occur annually. India
accounts for about two-thirds of the total global cases, and the disease is
endemic to Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. An initiative was
launched by WHO to eliminate VL as a public health problem from the South East
Asia region by 2020. The deadline has now been extended to 2023.

Explanation - The SWIFT system stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication and is a secure platform for financial institutions to
exchange information about global monetary transactions such as money
transfers. While SWIFT does not actually move money, it operates as a
middleman to verify information of transactions by providing secure financial
messaging services to more than 11,000 banks in over 200 countries. Based in
Belgium, it is overseen by the central banks from eleven industrial countries:
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland,
the United Kingdom, and the
United States, besides Belgium.

Explanation: Statements 1 and 3 are correct. RBI is indeed the nodal department
for complaints against unauthorized digital lending platforms, and MEITY has
been tasked with ensuring only legal loan apps are available on app stores.
Statement 2 is incorrect as India has the maximum number of digital loan apps,
not the lowest. Statement 4 is incorrect as payment aggregators manage online
transactions, not offline.

Explanation: Statements 1 and 2 are correct. The 1988 Act did define benami
transactions as stated, and the 2016 amendment expanded this definition.
Statement 3 is incorrect as the Act allows for both provisional attachment and
confiscation. Statement 4 is incorrect as the Appellate Tribunal was introduced in
the 2016 amendment, not in the original 1988 Act.