• National Food Security Mission (NFSM): Launched in October 2007 (during the 11th Five Year Plan) as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme based on the recommendations of the National Development Council (NDC). The core primary objective was to enhance the production of rice, wheat, and pulses by 10, 8, and 2 million tonnes respectively by the end of the 11th Plan (2011-12) through area expansion and productivity enhancement in targeted districts.
• Scope Expansion: Coarse cereals (millets) were incorporated later during the 12th Five Year Plan (2014-15), and commercial crops (cotton, jute, sugarcane) were integrated under NFSM in subsequent operational modifications, while original mandate strictly targeted rice, wheat, and pulses.
• Distractors: Vegetable and oilseed production are governed under dedicated separate centrally sponsored missions (Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture - MIDH, and National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm - NMOOP / NMEO-OP).

Correct option: (3) Rice, wheat and pulses only

• Necessary vs. Sufficient Condition in Social Welfare: In welfare economics, allocative efficiency (Pareto optimality) is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition to guarantee the maximization of social welfare:
• Necessary Condition: Social welfare cannot be at its global maximum if society is operating inside the production possibility frontier or off the contract curve, as moving to the utility possibility frontier can make at least one individual better off without making anyone worse off.
• Not Sufficient Condition: Pareto efficiency merely identifies an infinite continuum of optimal points along the Grand Utility Possibility Frontier ($GUPF$). A Pareto-efficient allocation can involve extreme inequality (e.g., one individual possessing 99% of total wealth). Determining the unique bliss point (maximum social welfare) requires normative ethical value judgments embodied in a Bergson-Samuelson Social Welfare Function ($W = W(U_A, U_B)$), making efficiency alone insufficient without equity.
• Distractors: Terms such as 'valid', 'invalid', and 'simultaneous' do not reflect formal logical criteria of economic optimality theorems.

Correct option: (1) Sufficient

• 1991 Balance of Payments (BoP) Crisis and Gold Pledging: In mid-1991, India's foreign exchange reserves plummeted to a precarious level of approximately $1.2 billion, barely sufficient to finance three weeks of essential imports. To avert an unprecedented sovereign default, the Chandrashekhar government and the Reserve Bank of India pledged India's gold reserves as collateral:
• The RBI air-lifted 46.91 tonnes of gold bullion to the Bank of England and 20 tonnes to the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to secure a emergency bridge loan of approximately $405 million.
• This collateralization restored short-term credibility, enabling India to negotiate a comprehensive structural adjustment loan package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank).
• Subsequent LPG Reforms: The collateral pledging set the stage for the landmark New Economic Policy (NEP) announced in July 1991 under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, ushering in Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization (LPG).

Correct option: (2) Gave India’s gold reserves as collateral

• Sir M. Visvesvaraya and Economic Planning: Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, a legendary civil engineer, statesman, and Dewan of Mysore, published the historic pioneering treatise “Planned Economy for India” in 1934.
• In this foundational work, he formulated the very first systematic 10-year blueprint for Indian economic development, advocating systematic industrialization, heavy capital investments, and doubling national income within a decade to eradicate poverty (“Industrialize or Perish”).
• Distractors:
• Jawaharlal Nehru: Headed the National Planning Committee (NPC) formed by the Indian National Congress in 1938 under the presidency of Subhas Chandra Bose.
• Sardar Patel: Integral in post-independence political consolidation and integration of princely states.
• Mahatma Gandhi: Advocated decentralized, cottage-industry-based village swaraj economics, later codified by J.C. Kumarappa and Shriman Narayan Agarwal in the Gandhian Plan (1944).

Correct option: (1) M Visvesvaraya