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NABARD Manager Grade B Rural Society, Polity & Institutions: practice questions

NABARD Manager Grade B · India · National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papers
10worked here, free
19written to this exam in this subject
9syllabus units

About NABARD Manager Grade B

NABARD Manager Grade B is a government recruitment exam run by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, for candidates in India. Last listed recruitment 2019. The 2019 mains had three 100-mark papers; interview 40.

Source: nabard.org.

Checked against the exam body's published information. Formats and fees change; confirm the current edition there before you book.

Rural Society, Polity & Institutions in NABARD Manager Grade B

How rural society is structured and governed: groups, stratification, leadership, customs and local self-government.

Our 19 NABARD Manager Grade B questions in this subject: 4 easy, 13 medium, 2 hard, across 9 units.

10 practice questions, worked

Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.

These 10 were written to NABARD Manager Grade B and are not shown on any other exam's page.

Question 1 · medium

Social mobility in which a person moves to a different occupation of about the same rank, such as from farm labour to construction labour, is called:

  1. Intergenerational mobility
  2. Upward mobility
  3. Horizontal mobility
  4. Vertical mobility
Answer and working

C. Horizontal mobility

Horizontal mobility is movement between positions of similar rank. Vertical mobility changes rank (up or down); intergenerational mobility compares a person's position with that of their parents.

Question 2 · medium

India's SHG-bank linkage programme began as a pilot in 1992 promoted by:

  1. The National Dairy Development Board
  2. NABARD
  3. The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh
  4. The Reserve Bank of India's rural planning department
Answer and working

B. NABARD

NABARD launched the SHG-bank linkage pilot in 1992 with RBI support. Grameen Bank is a Bangladeshi institution using joint-liability groups of five; NDDB promotes dairy cooperatives.

Question 3 · easy

The five livelihood assets (capitals) in DFID's sustainable livelihoods framework are human, natural, financial, physical and:

  1. Technological
  2. Social
  3. Political
  4. Cultural
Answer and working

B. Social

The five capitals are human, natural, financial, physical and social. Some later versions add political capital, but it is not one of the original five.

Question 4 · medium

'Elite capture' in decentralised rural programmes means:

  1. The transfer of programme funds from the central government to elected panchayats
  2. The recruitment of well-qualified graduates into district-level programme management posts
  3. The choice of the best-performing villages as model sites for national demonstrations
  4. Locally powerful people appropriating a disproportionate share of programme benefits or decisions
Answer and working

D. Locally powerful people appropriating a disproportionate share of programme benefits or decisions

Elite capture is the diversion of benefits or control to the locally powerful, often large landholders or the dominant caste. Transparent beneficiary selection, public meetings and social audit are the usual counters.

Question 5 · medium

Which Act gave daughters in Hindu joint families coparcenary rights in ancestral property equal to those of sons?

  1. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
  2. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005
  3. The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1976
  4. The Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 1984
Answer and working

B. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005

The 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 made daughters coparceners by birth. The Dowry Prohibition Act prohibits dowry; the Hindu Marriage Act governs marriage; the Protection of Civil Rights Act concerns untouchability.

Question 6 · easy

Uganda's system of local councils is organised as:

  1. LC1 at district level down to LC5 at village level
  2. LC1 at village level up to LC5 at district level
  3. A single elected council at district level only
  4. LC1 at parish level up to LC3 at national level
Answer and working

B. LC1 at village level up to LC5 at district level

Uganda's local councils run from LC1 in the village to LC5 at the district, with the district as the main devolved tier. Reversing the numbering, collapsing to one district council or ending at the national level misstates the structure.

Question 7 · medium

Many countries organise rural local government in up to three tiers (village, intermediate and district). Why do some laws let small jurisdictions skip the intermediate tier?

  1. Because international law limits local government to two tiers in countries with indigenous peoples
  2. Because a small population makes a separate middle tier costly relative to the services it delivers
  3. Because the intermediate tier is always appointed rather than elected and so is undemocratic
  4. Because village assemblies cannot legally exist where an intermediate council has been formed
Answer and working

B. Because a small population makes a separate middle tier costly relative to the services it delivers

A middle tier has fixed costs (offices, staff, elections) that a small population cannot justify, so laws such as India's, which makes the intermediate tier optional in states of up to 2 million people, allow two tiers there. No international rule limits tiers, intermediate councils are usually elected, and village assemblies coexist with all tiers.

Question 8 · hard

Laws that give indigenous or tribal village assemblies special powers, such as India's 1996 scheduled-areas law or the Philippines' Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (1997), typically include which provision?

  1. The power to dismiss the regional governor and to appoint and transfer all civil servants working in the area
  2. The power to levy income tax on residents and to frame criminal laws for the area
  3. The power to elect members of the national parliament by indirect vote
  4. Control over minor forest produce, approval of local plans and consent before land acquisition
Answer and working

D. Control over minor forest produce, approval of local plans and consent before land acquisition

Such laws strengthen community control over forest produce, local development plans, land alienation and consent before land is taken, in line with ILO Convention 169 and free, prior and informed consent. Taxing income, framing criminal law or dismissing officials are not within any local assembly's powers.

Question 9 · medium

In a village survey, 300 of 1,000 women aged 15 and over are workers, and 18 percentage points separate male and female literacy (80% vs 62%). Which statement is correct?

  1. The female work participation rate is 30%, and the literacy gap is 18 percentage points
  2. The female work participation rate is 30%, and the literacy gap is 22.5 percentage points
  3. The female work participation rate is 70%, and the literacy gap is 18 per cent of male literacy
  4. The female work participation rate is 3%, and the literacy gap is 29 percentage points
Answer and working

A. The female work participation rate is 30%, and the literacy gap is 18 percentage points

Work participation = 300 / 1,000 = 30%. The literacy gap = 80 - 62 = 18 percentage points. 70% is the share not working; 22.5% is the gap as a share of male literacy (18 / 80), which is a relative, not absolute, gap; 29% is 18 / 62 mislabelled.

Question 10 · medium

The peri-urban or rural-urban fringe is best described as an area where:

  1. Census towns are governed by municipal corporations that have replaced the gram panchayat and the gram sabha everywhere in India
  2. Only large commercial farms remain, because land prices make smallholding impossible
  3. Land use is shifting from farming to housing and industry, and households combine cultivation with non-farm work
  4. Land is reserved for forests and grazing by law, and settlement is prohibited by the state
Answer and working

C. Land use is shifting from farming to housing and industry, and households combine cultivation with non-farm work

The fringe is a zone of transition with rising land prices, mixed livelihoods and often unclear governance. In India many census towns are urban by census definition but still governed by panchayats, the reverse of the claim that municipal corporations have replaced panchayats there.

A study plan for Rural Society, Polity & Institutions in NABARD Manager Grade B

This plan follows where our questions actually fall, so the time goes where the marks are likely to be. It is our reading of the syllabus, not the exam body's weighting.

  1. First, the heavy units (58% of the 19 questions): Local self-government institutions in rural areas (5, 26%); Gender and social groups (3, 16%); Social stratification: class, caste, ethnicity and status (3, 16%).

    Read the manual chapters for these first and do every worked question you can find on them.

  2. Then the middle band: Social change (2, 11%); Social organisation (2, 11%); Rural and urban communities compared (1, 5%).

    Aim for one sitting per unit, then mixed questions across them.

  3. Then the lighter units: Rural leadership (1, 5%); Social, political and economic structure of rural societies (1, 5%); Value systems and customs (1, 5%).

    Learn the definitions, classifications and standard numbers; these units are more often recalled than worked.

  4. Leave time for the hard ones: Local self-government institutions in rural areas (2 hard of 5).

    Come back to these after a first pass, untimed, and read every explanation, including for the options you rejected.

  5. Bank the easy marks: Social change (1 easy of 2); Gender and social groups (1 easy of 3).

    Do these early in revision so they are fast on the day.

  6. Finish timed. Sit the subject as a timed set without notes, mark it, and send each wrong answer back to its unit above.

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