General Comprehension (UPSC) (Part-IV)

In the last two decades, the world's gross domestic product GDP has increased by 50 per cent, whereas inclusive wealth has increased by a mere 6 per cent. In recent decades, GDP-driven economic performance has only harmed inclusive wealth like human capital; and natural capital like forests, land and water.

While the world's human capital which stands at 57 per cent of total inclusive wealth grew by only 8 per cent, the natural capital which is 23 per cent of total inclusive wealth declined by 30 per cent worldwide in the last two decades.

By 2020, when the global economy is expected to run short of 56 million young people, India, with its youth surplus of 47 million, could fill the gap. It is in this context that labour reforms are often cited as the way to unlock double-digit growth in India.

In 2014, India's labour force was estimated to be about 40 per cent of the population, but 93 per cent of this force was in unorganized sector. Over the last decade, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of employment has slowed to 0.5 percent, with about 14 million jobs created during last year when the labour force increased by about 15 million.

The very first lesson that should be taught to us when we are of enough to understand it, is that complete freedom from the obligation to work is unnatural, and ought to be illegal, as we can escape our share of the burden of work only by throwing it on someone else's shoulders.

Nature ordains that the human race shall perish of famine if it stops working. We cannot escape from this tyranny. The question we have to settle is how much leisure we can afford to allow ourselves.

There is no harm in cultivating habits so long as they are not injurious. Indeed, most of us are little more than bundle of habits. Take away our habits and the residuum would hardly be worth bothering about. We could not get on without them.

They simplify the mechanism of life. They enable us to do a multitude of things automatically, which, if we had to give fresh and original thought to them each time, would make existence an impossible confusion.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intends them to be. We are citizens of a great country, on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard.

All of us, to whatever religion we may belong are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrowmindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or action.

"The individual, according to Rousseau, parts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the General will and in our corporate capacity we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."

In a democratic State, where a high degree of political maturity of the people obtains, the conflict between the will of the sovereign law-making body and the organized will of the people seldom occurs.

A successful democracy depends upon widespread interest and participation in politics, in which voting is an essential part. To deliberately refrain from taking such an interest, and from voting, is a kind of implied anarchy; it is to refuse one's political responsibility while enjoying the benefits of a free political society.

In a free country, the man who reaches the position of leader is usually one of outstanding character and ability. Moreover, it is usually possible to foresee that he will reach such a position, since early in life one can see his qualities of character. But this is not always true in the case of a dictator, often he reaches his position of power through chance, very often through the unhappy state of his country.

1. People always see the leisure time as a gift and use it for acquiring more material possessions.

2. Use of leisure by some people to produce new and original things has been the chief source of human progress.

Which of these assumptions is/are valid?

The greatest blessing that technological progress has in store for mankind is not, of course, an accumulation of material possessions. The amount of these that can be effectively enjoyed by one individual in one lifetime is not great. But there is not the same narrow limit to the possibilities of the enjoyment of leisure.

The gift of leisure may be abused by people who have had no experience of making use of it. Yet the creative use of leisure by a minority in societies has been the mainspring of all human progress beyond the primitive level.