General Agriculture & Social Sciences

Analysis of locations of international agricultural headquarters:

• Incorrect: Canberra is the capital of Australia and hosts national scientific bodies like CSIRO.
• Incorrect: Hyderabad hosts ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics).
• Correct: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was established in Quebec City in 1945 and its permanent headquarters have been situated in Rome, Italy since 1951.
• Incorrect: New York City serves as the principal headquarters of the United Nations, but not the FAO.

Analysis of agricultural credit timelines:

• Incorrect: September 1998 was immediately post-launch when rollout across commercial banks began.
• Incorrect: October 1998 is not the formal launch month.
• Incorrect: July 1998 was when guidelines were drafted by NABARD based on the R.V. Gupta Committee model.
• Correct: The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme was officially launched by the Government of India and RBI/NABARD in August 1998 to provide timely institutional credit to farmers.

Analysis of committees on institutional agricultural finance:

• Correct: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) was established on 12 July 1982 pursuant to the recommendations of the Committee to Review Arrangements for Institutional Credit for Agriculture and Rural Development (CRAFICARD), chaired by Shri B. Sivaraman.
• Incorrect: Gupta and Kapoor is a reference to standard textbook authors in statistics, not an agricultural credit commission.
• Incorrect: Rai and Bansal is a distractor.
• Incorrect: Ramasubramanian Committee is an invalid option in this context.

Statutory bodies under Biodiversity Act:

• Kolkata houses the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and Botanical Survey of India (BSI).
• New Delhi houses ICAR, NBAIR is elsewhere, and various central ministries.
• National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) was established in $2003$ under the Biological Diversity Act, $2002$, with its statutory headquarters located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
• Bangalore houses ICAR-NBAIR (Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources) and IIHR.