Read the following passage carefully and answer the question. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering that question.



Until the 1960s boys spent longer and went further in school than girls, and were more likely to graduate from university. Now, across the rich world and in a growing number of, poor countries, the balance has tilted the other way. Policymakers once fretted about girls'. Lack of confidence in science but this is changing. Sweden has commissioned research into its "boy crisis". Australia has devised a reading programme called "Boys, Blokes, Books and Bytes". In just a couple of generations, one gender gap has closed, only for another to open up. The reversal is laid out in a report published on March 5th by the OECD. A Paris-based rich-country think-tank. Boys' dominance just about endures in maths: at age 15 they are, on average, the equivalent of three months' schooling ahead of girls. In science the results are fairly even. But in reading, where girls have been ahead for some time, a gulf has appeared. In all G4 countries and economies in the study, girls outperform boys. The average gap is equivalent to an extra year of schooling. The OECD deems literacy to be the most important skill that it assesses, since further learning depends on it. Sure enough, teenage boys are 50% more likely than girls to fail to achieve basic proficiency in any of maths, reading and science. Youngsters in this group, with nothing to build on or shine at, are prone to drop out of school altogether. To see why boys and girls fare so differently in the classroom, first look at what they do outside it. The average 15-year old girl devotes five-and-a-half hours a week to homework, an hour more than the average boy, who spend more time playing video games and trawling the internet. Three-quarters of girls read for pleasure, compared with little more than half of boys. Reading rates are falling everywhere as screens draw eyes from pages, but boys are giving up faster. The OECD found that, among boys who do as much homework as the average girl, the gender gap in reading fell by nearly a quarter.

Once in the classroom, boys long to be out of it: They are twice as likely as girls to report that school is a "waste of time", and more often turn up late. Just as a teachers-used

to struggle to persuade girls that science is not only for men, the OECD now urges parents and policymakers to steer boys away from a version of masculinity that ignores academic achievement. Boys' disdain for school might have been less irrational when there were plenty of jobs for uneducated men. But those days have long gone. It may be that a bit of swagger helps in maths, where confidence plays a part in boys' lead (though it sometimes extends to delusion : 12% of boys told the OECD that they are familiar with the mathematical concept of "subjunctive sealing", a red herring that fooled only 7% of girls.) But their lack of self-discipline drives teachers crazy. The OECD found that boys did much better in its anonymized tests than in teachers assessments. What is behind this discrimination? One possibility is that teachers mark up students who are polite, eager and stay out of flights, all attributes that are more common among girls. In some countries, academic points can even be docked for bad behaviour.

Which of the following is TRUE in the context of the passage?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some questions.

Agriculture has always been celebrated as the primary sector in India: Thanks to the Green Revolution, India is now self-sufficient in food production. Indian agriculture has been making technological advancements as well. Does that mean everything is looking bright for Indian agriculture? A superficial analysis of the above points would tempt one to say yes, but the truth is far from it. The reality is that Indian farmers have to face extreme poverty and financial crisis, which is driving them to suicide. What are the grave adversities that drive the farmers to commit suicide at a time when the Indian economy is supposed, to be gearing up to take on the world?

Indian agriculture is predominantly dependent on nature. Irrigation facilities that are currently available do not cover the entire cultivable land. If the farmers are at the mercy of monsoons for timely water for their crops, they are at the mercy of the government for alternative irrigation facilities. Any failure of nature directly affects the fortunes of the farmers. Secondly, Indian agriculture is largely an unorganized sector, there is no systematic planning in cultivation, farmers work on lands of uneconomical sizes, institutional finances are not available and minimum purchase prices of the government do not, in reality, reach the poorest farmer. Added to this, the cost of agricultural inputs have been steadily rising over the years, farmers margins of profits have been narrowing because the price rise in inputs is not complemented by an increase in the purchase price of the agricultural produce. Even today, in several parts of the country agriculture, is a seasonal occupation. In many districts, farmers get only one crop per year and for the remaining part of the year, they find it difficult to make both ends meet.

The farmers normally resort to borrowing from moneylenders, in the absence of institutionalised finance. Where institutional finance is available, the ordinary farmer does not have a chance of availing it because of the procedures involved in disbursing the finance. This calls for removing the elaborate formalities for obtaining the loans. Institutional finance, where available is mostly availed by the medium or large landowners, the small tamers do not even have the awareness of the existence of such facilities. The moneylender is the only source of finance to the farmers. Should the crops fail, the farmers fall into a debt trap and crop failures piled up over the years give them no other option than to end their lives.

Another disturbing trend has been observed where farmers commit suicide or deliberately kill a family member in order to avail relief and benefits announced by the government to support the families of those who have committed suicide so that their families could at least benefit from the Government's relief programmes. What then needs to be done to prevent this sad state of affairs? There cannot be one single solution to end the woes of farmers.

Temporary measures through monetary relief would not be the solution. The governmental efforts should be targeted at improving the entire structure of the small farmers wherein the relief is not given on a drought to drought basis, rather they are taught to overcome their difficulties through their own skills and capabilities. Social responsibility also goes a long way to help the farmers. General public, NGOs, Corporate and other organisations too can play a part in helping farmers by adopting drought-affected villages and families and helping them to rehabilitate.

The nation has to realise that farmers suicides are not minor issues happening in remote parts of a few states, it is a reflection of the true state of the basis of our economy.

What does the author mean by procedures when he says that farmers do not get a chance of availing institutional finance because of procedures involved in it?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in the bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
The draft Payment and Settlement System Bill, 2018, seeks to foster competition, consumer protection, systemic stability and resilience in payments sector by providing a level playing field to non-bank players like fintech companies. It proposes an independent payments regulatory board for this. The assumption appears to be that banks, even if they use cutting edge technology, cannot meet escalating demand and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not flexible enough. Is it possible that in the name of such regulatory reforms, public interest will be compromised?
Payments services affect all citizens and have far-reaching implications for the economy. Currency and bank deposits are the backbone of money and payments. Currency issue is a government monopoly. It is initially issued through banks, and unlike digital payments, there are no implicit or explicit costs for payments in cash. Cash has a public good character, but digital payments are more convenient, saving printing and handling costs. Like cash, they also need to be easy to use, safe and secure.
With digitization of payments and use of point of sale systems for debit and credit cards, banks have compelled customers to incur additional costs for such payments. They state that there are significant costs to produce these services, which make customers’ lives easier. However, when asked to reveal costing figures to compare such costs with the costs for servicing customers at their branches for cash dispensation, they are not transparent, because such additional charges cannot be justified. Account holders implicitly sacrifice 3% (difference between risk free rate and savings accounts rate) for enjoying such services, which is substantial income for banks. But non-banks can pose a threat by popularizing the unified payments interface (UPI) for money transfer.
International brands have succeeded in imposing costly models, including influential indirect cartels. The merchant discount rate (MDR), levied on merchants mainly by the issuers and acquirers of cards (banks and their agents), is as high as 2.5% for credit cards, which affects consumers most. Irrespective of whether a customer uses a card, merchants mark up prices by around 2% to recover this cost, which is huge for the economy. MDR on credit cards can be reduced to the debit card level, which is 0.9%, through facilities such as overdraft taking care of the additional costs for float a user enjoys. Then, cards may gain popularity even with kirana shops.
RBI is well-known for its steps to promote digital payments. Initially, the RTGS fee per transaction for high values could exceed Rs.1,000. This was capped. Until 2007, the ATM charge per transaction could go up to Rs.35. The interchange fee was reduced and unified, freeing customers. These steps had salutary effects.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) was conceived by RBI as umbrella organization for innovative retail payments services. It introduced immediate payment service, UPI, RuPay and Bharat Bill Payment for frictionless, interoperable payments. The very character of NPCI, with it ploughing back internally generated surplus, checks monopoly profits. It provides benefits of economies of scale, reducing transaction fees and works as extended arm of the government and RBI for spurring growth of digital payments. This benefits banks, merchants and customers.

Which of the following services are not introduced by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)?