IAS Medha Anand, has get 310 marks in her optional subject sociology, 156 in paper – 1 & 154 marks in Paper-2 in CSE 2023. Notably, Sociology for UPSC has garnered a reputation as one of the Highest scoring optional subjects in the UPSC Main Examination, with numerous candidates consistently achieving 300+. Its popularity is evident in the fact that a significant proportion of top 100 rankers opt for Sociology as their optional subject, showcasing its high scoring potential, particularly for those not from sociology backgrounds.
In India, CBDC refers to the e-Rupee, a digital currency launched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). All G7 economies had moved into the development or pilot stages of a CBDC as of June 2024. Canada, France, China, India, and South Korea are among the many countries studying or testing a CBDC. Forty-four other countries had developed an interest in the possibility of having a CBDC as of June 2024. However, these potential use cases already exist, as closed loop wallets within stores, ecommerce networks or metro cards.
MobiKwik’s response hints at the use of smart contracts for the distribution of subsidies. A smart contract is a self-executing program that automates a transaction upon the fulfilment of certain conditions or parameters. If these smart contracts require specific actions for a transaction to occur, it could indicate a gamification of payments, something that UPI also did in its early days.
The most successful cryptocurrencies have large networks of users participating in public blockchain consensus. A CBDC would not use a public blockchain, but would likely use a permissioned blockchain or ledger with some transparency attributes of a public blockchain. It is easy to confuse a CBDC and cryptocurrency but they aren’t the same. A U.S. CBDC will be centralized and under the purview of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank. The Fed must be satisfied that it’s a safe digital asset accessible to the public before it launches a U.S. It must determine that it’s without credit and liquidity risks and that it’s privacy-protected, intermediated, transferable, and identity-verified.
The order also pointed to the need for technical experts with good money and payment systems knowledge to oversee the technology involved in building the U.S. The order’s digital assets R&D agenda is concerned with how cryptography technology can help develop a CBDC that matches the Federal ResReserve’sssion. On the second front, UPI Lite, which was launched in September 2023, already allows offline money transfers.
In April 2020, China became the first major economy to pilot its digital currency, the e-CNY or Digital Yuan. Since then, numerous central banks have initiated pilot programs and research projects to assess the viability and usability of CBDCs within their economies. A U.S. CBDC would serve as a complement to existing central bank reserve account balances and widely used fiat currency. As a bonus, it should provide a medium for executing instant and seamless cross-border transactions.
