In each of the questions below, a sentence is given with two blanks. Choose the option that best fills both blanks to make the sentence grammatically and contextually correct. The central bank’s insistence on maintaining an artificially ______________ exchange rate, despite mounting current account pressures, reflected a deeper ______________ between the rhetoric of market liberalisation and the structural protectionism embedded in its actual policy conduct.

The sentence describes a central bank maintaining an exchange rate in a fixed or controlled manner despite mounting pressures — signalling that the rate is being held artificially in place rather than allowed to move freely.  The second blank describes the gap or contradiction between “rhetoric of market liberalisation” and actual “structural protectionism” — requiring a word that captures an internal contradiction or inconsistency. Pegged means fixed or tied to a reference value — the standard financial term for a centrally controlled exchange rate maintained against market forces. This is contextually precise. Dissonance means a lack of harmony or consistency between two things — perfectly capturing the contradiction between liberalisation rhetoric and protectionist practice. Hence (b) is the correct answer.