Agricultural Economics- ICAR JRF/SRF 2024

• WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) - Market Access Pillar:
• The Agreement on Agriculture (effective January 1, 1995 under the WTO) rests on three fundamental pillars: Market Access, Domestic Support, and Export Competition.
• Tariffication: A cornerstone rule under the Market Access pillar requiring all member countries to abolish non-tariff barriers (quantitative import quotas, discretionary import licensing, variable import levies, and voluntary export restraints) and convert them into equivalent transparent bound customs tariffs (tariff-rate quotas - TRQs).
• Distractors:
• Aggregate Measurement of Support (AMS): Quantifies trade-distorting domestic support under the Amber Box.
• Export Subsidies: Direct financial assistance given to export goods, phased out under the Export Competition pillar.
• TRIPS: Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, an entirely separate WTO agreement.

Correct option: (1) Market access commitment

• Start of Globalization in the Indian Economy:
• India initiated comprehensive economic globalization in 1991 with the launch of the New Economic Policy (NEP), unveiled by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Union Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in July 1991.
• Sparked by the 1991 balance-of-payments crisis, the reforms dismantled the restrictive License-Permit-Quota Raj, dismantled quantitative import restrictions, reduced peak customs tariffs, opened sectors to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and pegged the rupee to market-determined exchange rates (LPG paradigm).
• Distractors: Years 1981, 1985, and 1995 represent unrelated milestones (1985 saw modest industrial de-licensing; 1995 marked India joining the WTO as a founding member).

Correct option: (3) 1991

• Fundamental Research (Pure / Basic Research):
• Fundamental Research is investigation undertaken primarily to expand the frontiers of scientific knowledge, formulate fundamental theories, or uncover universal natural laws without any immediate commercial objective or practical problem-solving application in mind.
• Distractors:
• Exploratory Research: Initial research conducted to clarify the nature of ambiguous, poorly understood problems.
• Action Research: Immediate, localized problem-solving research conducted by practitioners to solve real-time organizational issues.
• Explanatory (Causal) Research: Focuses on explaining why phenomena occur by identifying specific cause-and-effect relationships.

Correct option: (1) Fundamental research