Read the following passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.
The main threat to maintaining progress in human development comes from the increasingly evident unsustainability of production and consumption patterns. Current production models rely heavily on fossil fuels. We now know that this is unsustainable because the resources are finite. The close link between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions needs to be severed for human development to become truly sustainable. Some developed countries have begun to alleviate the worst effects by expanding recycling and investing in public transport and infra-structure. But most developing countries are hampered by the high costs and low availability of clean energy sources. Developed countries need to support developing countries' transition to sustainable human development.
Consider the following statements :
Developed countries can support developing countries' transition to sustainable human development by
1. making clean energy sources available at low cost
2. providing loans for improving their public transport at nominal interest rates
3. encouraging them to change their production and consumption patterns
Which of the statements given above is / are correct?
Read the following passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.
Unless the forces and tendencies which are responsible for destroying the country's environment are checked in the near future and afforestation of denuded areas is taken up on a massive scale, the harshness of the climatic conditions and soil erosion by wind and water will increase to such an extent that agriculture, which is the mainstay of our people, will gradually become impossible. The desert countries of the world and our own desert areas in Rajasthan are a grim reminder of the consequences of large-scale deforestation. Pockets of desert-like landscape are now appearing in other parts of the country including the Sutlej-Ganga Plains and the Deccan Plateau. Where only a few decades back there used to be lush green forests with perennial streams and springs, there is only brown earth, bare of vegetation, without any water in the streams and springs except in the rainy season.
According to the passage given above, deforestation and denudation will ultimately lead to which of the following?
1. Depletion of soil resource
2. Shortage of land for the common man
3. Lack of water for cultivation
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Read the following passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.
"In simple matters like shoe-making, we think only a specially trained person will serve our purpose, but in politics, we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a State. When we are ill, we call for a trained physician, whose degree is a guarantee of specific preparation and technical competence–we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one : well then, when the whole State is ill should we not look for the service and guidance of the wisest and the best?"
Which one of the following statements best reflects the message of the author of the passage? Read the following passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.
The poverty line is quite unsatisfactory when it comes to grasping the extent of poverty in India. It is not only because of its extremely narrow definition of 'who is poor' and the debatable methodology used to count the poor, but also because of a more fundamental assumption underlying it. It exclusively relies on the notion of poverty as insufficient income or insufficient purchasing power. One can better categorize it by calling it income poverty. If poverty is ultimately about deprivations affecting human well-being, then income poverty is only one aspect of it. Poverty of a life, in our view, lies not merely in the impoverished state in which the person actually lives, but also in the lack of real opportunity given by social constraints as well as personal circumstances–to choose other types of living. Even the relevance of low incomes, meagre possessions, and other aspects of what are standardly seen as economic poverty relate ultimately to their role in curtailing capabilities, i.e., their role in severely restricting the choices people have to lead variable and valued lives.
Why is the methodology adopted in India to count the 'poor' debatable?