Advertisements
Advertisements
प्रश्न
In view of the passage given below. Choose the best option for question.
When talks come to how India has done for itself in 50 years of Independence, the world has nothing but praise for our success in remaining a democracy. On other fronts, the applause is less loud. In absolute terms, India has not done too badly, of course, life expectancy has increased. So has literacy. Industry, which was barely a fledging, has grown tremendously. And as far as agriculture is concerned, India has been transformed from a country perpetually on the edge of starvation into a success story held up for others to emulate. But these are competitive times when change is rapid, and to walk slowly when the rest of the world is running is almost as bad as standing still on walking backwards.
Compared with large chunks of what was then the developing 'world South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia. China and what was till lately a separate Hong Kong-India has fared abysmally. It began with a far better infrastructure than most of these countries had. It suffered hardly or not at all during the Second World War. It had advantages like an English speaking elite, quality scientific manpower (including a Nobel laureate and others who could be ranked among the world's best) and excellent business acumen. Yet, today, when countries are ranked according to their global competitiveness. it is tiny Singapore that figures at the top. Hong Kong is an export powerhouse. So is Taiwan. If a symbol were needed of how far we have fallen back. note that while Korean Cielos are sold in India, no one in South Korea is rushing to buy an Indian car. The reasons list themselves. Topmost is economic isolationism.
The government discouraged imports and encouraged self-sufficiency. Whatever the aim was, the result was the creation of a totally inefficient industry that failed to keep pace with global trends and, therefore. became absolutely uncompetitive. only when the trade gates were opened a little did this become apparent. The years since then have been spent merely trying to catch up. That the government actually sheltered its industrialists from foreign competition is a little strange. For in all other respects, it operated under the conviction that businessmen were little more than crookS how were to be prevented from entering the most important areas of the economy, how we're to be hamstrung in as many ways as possible, how we're to be tolerated in the same way as an inexcusable wan. The high expropriation rates of taxation. the licensing Jaws, the reservation of whole swathes of the industry for the public sector, and the granting of monopolies to the public sector firms were the principal manifestations of this attitude. The government forgot that before wealth could be distributed, it had to be created.
The government forgot that it itself could not create, but only squander wealth. some of the manifestations of the old attitude have changed. Tax rates have fallen. Licensing has been a but abolished. And the gates of global trade have been opened wide. But most of these Changes were first by circumstances partly by the foreign exchange bankruptcy of 1991 ana the recognition that the government could no longer muster the funds of support the public sector, leave alone expand it. Whether the attitude of the government itself. or that of more than handful of ministers has changed, is open to question. In many other ways, however, the government has not changed one with. Business still has to negotiate a welter of negotiations. Transparency is still a long way off. And there is no exit policy. In defending the existing policy, politicians betray an inability to see beyond their noses. A no-exit policy for labour is equivalent to a no-entry policy for new business If one industry is not allowed to retrench labour, other industries will think a hundred times before employing new labour. In other way too, the government hurts industries.
Public sector monopolies like the department of telecommunications and Yidesh sanchar Nigam Ltd. make it possible for Indian business to operate only at a cost several times that of their counterparts abroad The infrastructure is in a shambles partly because it is unable to formulate a sufficiently remunerative policy for private business, and partly because it does not have the stomach to change market rates for services. After a burst of activity in the early nineties, the government iS dragging itS feet. At the rate, it is going. it will be another fifty years before the government realizes that a pro-business policy is the best pro-people policy By then, of course, the world would have moved even further ahead.
The example of the Korean Cielo has been presented to highlight..
विकल्प
India's lack of stature in the international market
India's poor performance in the international market
India's lack of creditability in the international market
India's disrepute in the international market
Advertisements
उत्तर
India's poor performance in the international market
APPEARS IN
संबंधित प्रश्न
Direction : The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
It is a matter of life or death: that’s a concept that gets our attention, whether chuckling over it in a B-grade film or engrossed by it in an A-grade medical book such as this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It isn’t hyperbole to call Emperor a literary masterpiece. The Pulitzer citation describes it as, “an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science.” “Elegant” is an apposite description of the New York-based oncologist’s prose, whether he is rephrasing Tolstoy: “Normal cells are identically normal; malignant cells become unhappily malignant in unique ways”; or explaining the book’s provocative title: “This book is a ‘biography’ in the truest sense of the word – an attempt to enter the mind of this immortal illness, to understand its personality, to demystify its behaviour”; or extrapolating, from cancer’s ability to mutate, into the realm of philosophy: “If we, as a species, are the ultimate product of Darwinian selection, then so, too, is this incredible disease that lurks inside us.” Mukherjee weaves together multiple stories about medical advances, doctors and scientists, and the patients who teach us something in the living or dying. Emperor is a historical account of cancer; we understand how cancer rose to prominence as a leading cause of death – as a direct result of human beings living longer now, and more likely to develop cancer. A greater understanding of the disease however comes with the caveat, the more you
know, the more aware you are of how much you don’t know. Tales related to surgery, with its inherent drama, has the edge on our medical reading lists. Some medical books fall into the Self Help category — one of the most successful genres in the publishing world today. While the genre can attract those looking to make a quick buck by peddling to people’s insecurities, there are some useful tomes too. Author Tim Parks in Teach Us to Sit Still shares how reading a famous self-help book, A Headache in the Pelvis helped with his chronic pelvic pain syndrome. Medical books deal with a subject close to our hearts — us, we, ourselves. Perhaps the ones we are most drawn to – thrillers aside – are those that give us a deeper insight into how the mind-body machine works, why we are sick, how we can get better — and, unhappily, sometimes, why we can’t.
Which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree with?
Read the given passage carefully and attempt the questions that follow.
MY LOVE OF NATURE, goes right back to my childhood, to the times when I stayed on, my grandparents' farm in Suffolk. My father was in the armed forces, so we were always moving and didn't have a home base for any length of time, but I loved going there. I think it was my grandmother who encouraged me more than anyone: she taught me the names of wild flowers and got me interested in looking at the countryside, so it seemed obvious to go on to do Zoology at University.
I didn't get my first camera until after I'd graduated, when I was due to go diving in Norway and needed a method of recording the sea creatures I would find there. My father didn't know anything about photography, but he bought me an Exacta, which was really quite a good camera for the time, and I went off to take my first pictures of sea anemones and starfish. I became keen very quickly, and learned how to develop and print; obviously I didn't have much money in those days, so I did more black and white photography than colour, but it was all still using the camera very much as a tool to record what I found both by diving and on the shore. I had no ambition at all to be a photographer then, or even for some years afterwards.
Unlike many of the wildlife photographers of the time, I trained as a scientist and therefore my way of expressing myself is very different. I've tried from the beginning to produce pictures that are always biologically correct. There are people who will alter things deliberately: you don't pick up sea creatures from the middle of the shore and take them down to attractive pools at the bottom of the shore without knowing you're doing it. In so doing you're actually falsifying the sort of seaweeds they live on and so on, which may seem unimportant, but it is actually changing the natural surroundings to make them prettier. Unfortunately, many of the people who select pictures are looking for attractive images and, at the end of the day, whether it's truthful or not doesn't really matter to them. It's important to think about the animal first, and there are many occasions when I've not taken a picture because it would have been too disturbing. Nothing is so important that you have to get that shot; of course, there are cases when it would be very sad if you didn't, but it's not the end of the world. There can be a lot of ignorance in people's behavior towards wild animals and it's a problem that more and more people are going to wild places: while some animals may get used to cars, they won't get used to people suddenly rushing up to them. The sheer pressure of people, coupled with the fact that there are increasingly fewer places where no-one else has photographed, means that over the years, life has become much more difficult for the professional wildlife photographer.
Nevertheless, wildlife photographs play a very important part in educating people about what is out there and what needs conserving. Although photography can be an enjoyable pastime, as it is to many people, it is also something that plays a very important part in educating young and old alike. Of the qualities it takes to make a good wildlife photographer, patience is perhaps the most obvious -you just have to be prepared to sit it out. I'm actually more patient now because I write more than ever before, and as long as I've got a bit of paper and a pencil, I don't feel I'm wasting my time. And because I photograph such a wide range of things, even if the main target doesn't appear I can probably find something else to concentrate on instead.
Wildlife photography is important because it can make people realise that
Read the following passage carefully and answer the question:
Antigone was one of the daughters of Oedipus, that tragic figure of male power who had been cursed by Gods for mistakenly his father and subsequently marrying his mother and assuming the throne of Thebes. After the death of Oedipus, civil war broke out and a battle was waged in front of the seventh gate of Thebes his two sons led opposing factions and at the height of the battle fought and killed each other. Oedipus brother Creon, uncle of Antigone, was now undisputed master of the city. Creon resolved to make an example of the brother who had fought against him, Polynices, by refusing the right of honourable burial. The penalty of death was promulgated against any who would defy this order.
Antigone was distraught. Polynices had been left unburied, unwept, a feast of flesh for keen eyed carrion birds. Antigone asks her sister Ismene, for it was a challenge to her royal blood. Now it is time to show whether or not you are worthy of your royal blood is be 'not my brother and yours? Whether you like it or not? I shall never desert him-never. But Simone responds, “How could you dare-when Creon has expressly forbidden it? Antigone, we are women, it is not for us to fight against men". With a touch of bitterness, Antigone releases her sister from the obligation to help her. but argues she cannot shrug off the burden. "if I die for it what happiness! Live,..if you will live, and defy the holiest of laws of heaven".
What is the main theme of the story of Antigone?
The questions section is based on the passage. The question is to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.
In principle, a cohesive group-one whose members generally agree with one another and support one another’s judgments do a much better job at decision making than it could if it were non-cohesive. When cohesiveness is low or lacking entirely, compliance out of fear of recrimination is likely to be strongest. To overcome this fear, participants in the group’s deliberations need to be confident that they are members in good standing and that the others will continue to value their role in the group, whether or not they agree about a particular issue under discussion. As members of a group feel more accepted by the others, they acquire greater freedom to say what they really think, becoming less likely to use deceitful arguments or to play it safe by dancing around the issues with vapid or conventional comments. Typically, then, the more cohesive a group becomes, the less its members will deliberately censor what they say out of fear of being punished socially for antagonizing their fellow members. But group cohesiveness can have pitfalls as well: while the members of a highly cohesive group can feel much freer to deviate from the majority, their desire for genuine concurrence on every important issue often inclines them not to use this freedom. In a highly cohesive group of decision-makers, the danger is not that individuals will conceal objections they harbor regarding a proposal favored by the majority, but that they will think the proposal is a good one without attempting to carry out critical scrutiny that could reveal grounds for strong objections. Members may then decide that any misgivings they feel are not worth pursuing that the benefit of any doubt should be given to the group consensus. In this way, they may fall victim to a syndrome known as ‘groupthink’, which one psychologist concerned with collective decision making has defined as ‘a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures’. Based on analyses of major fiascos of international diplomacy and military decision making, researchers have identified groupthink behaviour as a recurring pattern that involves several factors: overestimation of the group’s power and morality, manifested, for example, is an illusion of invulnerability, which creates excessive optimism;
closed-mindedness to warnings of problems and to alternative viewpoints; and unwarranted pressures toward uniformity, including self-censorship with respect to doubts about the group’s reasoning and a concomitant shared illusion of unanimity concerning group decisions. The cohesiveness of the decision-making group is an essential antecedent condition for this syndrome but not a sufficient one, so it is important to work toward identifying the additional factors that determine whether group cohesiveness will deteriorate into groupthink or allow for effective decision making.
Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?
Read the given passage carefully and attempt the questions that follow.
It is an old saying that knowledge is power. Education is an instrument that imparts knowledge and therefore, indirectly controls power. Therefore, ever since the dawn of our civilisation, persons in power have always tried to supervise or control education. It has been the handmaid of the ruling class. During the Christian era, the ecclesiastics controlled the institution of education and diffused among the people the gospel of the Bible and religious teachings. These gospels and teachings were no other than a philosophy for the maintenance of the existing society. It taught the poor man to be meek and to earn his bread with the sweat of his brow, while the priests and the landlords lived in luxury and fought duels for the slightest offence. During the Renaissance, education passed more from the clutches of the priest into the hands of the prince. In other words, it became more secular. Under the control of the monarch, education began to devise and preach the infallibility of its masters, the monarch or king. It also invented and supported fantastic theories like “The Divine right Theory” and that the king can do no wrong, etc. With the advent of the industrial revolution, education took a different turn and had to please the new masters. It now no longer remained the privilege of the baron class, but was thrown open to the new rich merchant class of the society. The philosophy which was in vogue during this period was that of “Laissez Faire” restricting the function of the state to a mere keeping of laws and order while on the other hand, in practice the law of the jungle prevailed in the form of free competition and the survival of the fittest.
Who controlled the institution of education during the Christian Era?
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
A large number of branches of banks have been set-up in the villages. The main purpose of setting up these banks is to develop the habit of saving among the villagers and also to give loans to farmers for boosting production in one way or the other. So, banks had been concentrated in the bigger cities and Indian villagers had no faith in them.
The new banks also intend to re-channel bank credit -from the big industries to the small sectors. With the intention of promoting rural banking, regional rural banks were established. These aligned the local field with rural problems. These banks are not to replace the other credit-giving bodies but to supplement them.
The Steering Committee of the Regional Rural Banks considered some structural changes. First of all, they gave thought to the staffing spectrum, then to effective coordination among banks rural cooperatives and commercial and the possibility of bringing credit within the access to weaker sections. They wanted to recruit staff for the rural banks at lower salaries. But, this type of discrimination would have been unfruitful. So, it was given up.
A problem with regard to the rural banks is the creditworthiness of the poor. The Indian farmers are so poor that they cannot pay back their loans. The rural Indian surveys make it quite clear that practically rural farmers have no creditworthiness. Their socio-economic mobility is almost zero. That is why banks fear that their credit will never be paid back.
Another difficulty for the rural banks is that loans cannot be processed so easily. Processing loans also entails heavy expenditure. This was also going to affect their financial position. Still, the establishment of the rural banks was decided because the social advantages were more important than the commercial consideration.
Rural banks definitely encourage savings. No doubt the villagers do not have to pay income tax and they get many other concessions, yet their saving is not significant. Despite all the hurdles, the rural banking system will boost up the economy of villages and thereby the economy of the country.
Which of the following is not true according to the passage?
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
Today, with a Noble Prize to its credit, Grameen is one of the largest microfinance organisations in the world. It started out lending small sums to poor entrepreneurs in Bangladesh to help them grow from a subsistence living to a livelihood. The great discovery its founders made was that even with few assets, these entrepreneurs repaid on time. Grameen and micro-finance have since become financial staples of the developing world. Grarneen's approach, unlike other micro-financers, uses the group-lending model. Costs are kept down by having borrowers vet one another, tying together their financial fates and eliminating expensive loan offices entirely. The ultimate promise of Grameen is to use business lending as a way for people to lift themselves out of poverty. Recently, Grameen has taken on a different challenge by setting up operations in the US Money may be tight in the waning recession but it is still a nation of 100000 bank branches. Globally, the working micro-finance equation consists of, borrowing funds cheaply and keeping loan defaults and overhead expenses sufficiently low. Microlenders, including Grarneen, do this by charging colossal interest rates-as high as 60% or 70% which is necessary to compensate for the risk and attract bank funding.
But, loans at rates much above the standard 15% would most likely be attacked as usurious in America. So, the question is whether there is a role for a third world leader in the world's largest economy? Grameen America believes that in a few years it will be successful and turn a profit thanks to 9 million US households untouched by mainstream banks and 21 million using the likes of payday loans and pawn shops for financing. But enticing the unbanked won't be easy. Alter all, profit has long eluded micro-financiers and if it is not lucrative, it is not microlending, but charity. When Grameen first went to the US, in the late 1980s. it tripped up. Under Grameen's fuselage, banks started microloans to entrepreneurs with a shocking 30% loss. But, Grameen America says that this time results will be different because Grameen employees themselves will be making the loans, not training an American bank to do it. More often than not, the borrowers, Grameen finds, in the US already have jobs (as factory workers e.g.) or side businesses-selling toys. cleaning houses, etc. The loans from Grameen, by and large, provide a steadier source of funding, but they don't create businesses out of nothing. But, money isn't everything. More importantly, for many entrepreneurs, group members are tremendous sources of support to one another. So, even if studies are yet to determine if Grameen is a clear-cut pathway out of poverty it still achieves something useful.
What is the central theme of the passage?
Choose the word that is opposite to the meaning of the given word.
Steadier
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
Teaching, more even than most other professions, has been transformed during the last hundred years from a small, highly skilled profession concerned with a minority of the population, to a large and important branch of public service. The profession has a great and honourable tradition, extending from the dawn of history until recent times, but any teacher in the modern world who allows himself to be inspired by the ideals of his predecessors is likely to be made sharply aware that it is not his function to teach what he thinks, but to instill such beliefs and prejudices as are thought useful by his employers.
The modern teacher is not able to follow the ideals of his predecessors because
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
Once upon a time, there was a royal elephant that used to reside in the premises of the king's palace. The elephant was very dear to the king, so he was well-fed and well treated. There was also a Dog who lived near the Elephant's shed. He was very weak and skinny. He was always fascinated by the smell of rich sweet rice being fed to the royal elephant. One day, the Dog could no longer resist the aroma of the rice and somehow managed to sneak into the Elephant's shed. He ate the grains of sweet rice that fell from the Elephant's mouth. He liked the rice so much, that he started going there daily to eat the rice. For days, the huge Elephant didn't notice the small dog as he was busy enjoying the delicious food. Gradually, the Dog grew bigger and stronger eating such rich food. Finally, the Elephant noticed him and allowed him access to the food. The Elephant enjoyed the company of the Dog and started sharing his food with him. They also started spending time with each other and soon became good friends. They ate together, slept together and played together. While playing, the Elephant would hold the Dog in his trunk and swing him back and forth. Soon neither of them was happy without the other. They became great friends and didn't want to be separated from each other.
Then one day, a man saw the Dog and asked the Elephant-keeper, "I want to buy this Dog. What price do you want for it?" The Elephant keeper didn't own the Dog but sold it and extracted a sum of money from this deal. The man took the Dog to his home village, which was quite far away. The King's Elephant became very sad after this incident. He missed his friend a lot and started neglecting everything. He didn't want to do anything without his dear friend, so he stopped eating, drinking and even bathing. Finally, the Elephant-keeper reported this to the King; however, he didn't mention anything about the Dog. The King had a wise minister, who was known for his keen understanding of animals. The King ordered the minister, "Go to the Elephant shed and find out the reason for the Elephant's condition". The intelligent minister went to the Elephant's shed and found the Elephant very sad. He examined the Elephant and asked the Elephant keeper, "There is nothing wrong with this Elephant's body, then why does he look so sad?" I think this Elephant is grief-stricken, possibly due to the loss of a dear friend.
Do you know if this Elephant shared a close friendship with anyone? The Elephant-keeper said, "There was a Dog who used to eat, sleep and play with the Elephant. He was taken by a stranger three days ago''. The minister went back to the King and said, "Your majesty, in my opinion, the royal Elephant is not sick, but he is lonesome without his dear friend, the Dog". The King said, "You're right, friendship is one of the most wonderful things of life. Do you know where that ·Dog is?" The Minister replied, "Elephant keeper has informed me that a stranger took him away and he doesn't know his whereabouts". The King asked, "how can we bring back my Elephant's friend and make him happy again?" The Minister suggested, "Your Majesty, make a declaration that whoever has the dog that used to live at the royal Elephant's shed will be penalised". The King did the same and the man who had taken the dog, instantly turned him loose when he heard the proclamation. As soon as he was freed, the Dog ran back as fast as he could to the Elephant's shed. The Elephant was so delighted to see the Dog that he picked his friend up with his trunk and swung him back and forth. The Dog wagged his tail, while the Elephant's eyes sparkled with happiness. The King was content to see the Elephant happy once again and rewarded the Minister for his wise judgment.
Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the passage?
