[Mission 2022] Insta– QUED ( Questions from Editorials. ) 30 October 2021

Solution: a)

While the Consumer Price Index-based retail inflation — the more widely tracked policy tool — looks at the price at which the consumer buys goods, the WPI tracks prices at the wholesale, or factory gate/mandi levels. Between the wholesale price and the retail price, the difference essentially is the former only tracks basic prices devoid of transportation cost, taxes and the retail margin etc. And that WPI pertains to only goods, not services.

So, the WPI basically captures the average movement of wholesale prices of goods and is primarily used as a GDP deflator (the ratio of the value of goods an economy produces in a particular year at current prices to that of prices that prevailed during the base year).

In recent years, the WPI and CPI have shown a degree of dissonance, given that the WPI has a higher weight of manufactured goods and the CPI has a greater constitution of food items. 

WPI numbers are not the RBI’s main metric for the purpose of setting monetary policy.

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Solution: c)

The RBI proposed to enable, in a phased manner, payment system operators like mobile wallets regulated by the central bank to take direct membership in RTGS and NEFT.

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Solution: b)

Currency chest is a place where the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stocks the money meant for banks and ATMs. These chests are usually situated on the premises of different banks but administrated by the RBI.

The money present in the currency chest belongs to the RBI and the money, kept in the strong room outside the currency chest belongs to the bank.

How is the loss recovered in case of a crime resulting in loss of cash?

As per the set guidelines, the bank, in which the currency chest is situated is liable to fulfill the loss of the currency chest.

The security of currency chests is the subject of the bank in which chests are situated. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reimburses the security expenses to the bank as per the set norms.

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Solution:  c)

The BIMSTEC member states – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Solution: c)

Newly published results of an international experiment hint at the possibility of new physics governing the laws of nature, scientists say. The results of the experiment, which studied a subatomic particle called the muon, do not match the predictions of the Standard Model, on which all particle physics is based, and instead reconfirm a discrepancy that had been detected in an experiment 20 years previously.

The muon g-2 experiment:

• Fermilab, which houses the American particle accelerator, has released the first results from its ‘muon g-2’ experiment.
• These results spotlight the anomalous behaviour of the elementary particle called the muon. The muon, a heavier cousin of the electron, is expected to have a value of 2 for its magnetic moment, labelled ‘g’.
• However, the muon exists not in isolation but embedded in a sea where particles are popping out and vanishing every instant due to quantum effects.
• So, its g value is altered by its interactions with these short-lived excitations.

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