General Comprehension (UPSC) (Part-V)

1. The issue of effects of natural calamities on agriculture is not given due consideration by GM technology companies.

2. In the long run, GM technology will not be able to solve agricultural problems arising due to global warming.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

What stands in the way of the widespread and careful adoption of 'Genetic Modification (GM)' technology is an 'Intellectual Property Rights' regime that seeks to create private monopolies for such technologies.

If GM technology is largely corporate driven, it seeks to maximize profits and that too in the short run. That is why corporations make major investments for herbicide tolerant and pest-resistant crops. Such properties have only a short window, as soon enough, pests and weeds will evolve to overcome such resistance.

This suits the corporations. The National Farmers Commission pointed out that priority must be given in genetic modification to the incorporation of genes that can help impart resistance to drought, salinity and other stresses.

Most invasive species are neither terribly successful nor very harmful. Britain's invasive plants are not widespread, not spreading especially quickly, and often less of a nuisance than vigorous natives such as bracken.

The arrival of new species almost always increases biological diversity in a region; in many cases, a flood of newcomers drives no native species to extinction. One reason is that invaders tend to colonise disturbed habitats like polluted lakes and post-industrial wasteland, where little else lives. They are nature's opportunists.

1. Food safety is a complex issue that calls for a multipronged solution.

2. Great investments need to be made in developing the manpower for surveillance and training.

3. India needs to make sufficient legislation for governing food processing industry.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Diarrhoeal deaths among Indian children are mostly due to food and water contamination. Use of contaminated groundwater and unsafe chemicals in agriculture, poor hygiene in storage and handling of food items to food cooked and distributed in unhygienic surroundings; there are myriad factors that need regulation and monitoring.

People need to have awareness of adulteration and ways of complaining to the relevant authorities. Surveillance of food-borne diseases involves a number of government agencies and entails a good training of inspection staff. Considering the proportion of the urban population that depends on street food for its daily meals, investing in training and education of street vendors is of great significance.

The interests of working and poor people have historically been neglected in the planning of our cities. Our cities are increasingly intolerant, unsafe and unlivable places for large numbers of citizens and yet we continue to plan via the old ways-the static Development Plant that draws exclusively from technical expertise, distanced from people's live experiences and needs, and actively excluding large number of people, places, activities and practices that are an integral part of the city.

1. most of modern economic growth is based on technological progress.

2. much of modern Indian economy does not nurture sufficient symbiotic relationship with labour-intensive, natural resource-based livelihoods.

3. service sector in India is not very labour-intensive.

4. literate rural population is not willing to enter organised sector.

Which of the statements given above are correct?

A vast majority of Indians are poor, with barely 10 percent employed in the organised sector. We are being convinced that vigorous economic growth is generating substantial employment. But this is not so.

When our economy was growing at 3 percent per year, employment in the organised sector was growing at 2 percent per year. As the economy began to grow at 7-8 percent per year, the rate of growth of employment in the organised sector actually declined to 1 percent per year.

India has banking correspondents, who help bring people in the hinterland into the banking fold. For them to succeed, banks cannot crimp on costs. They also cannot afford to ignore investing in financial education and literacy. Banking correspondents are way too small to be viewed as a systemic risk.

Yet India's banking regulator has restricted them to serving only one bank, perhaps to prevent arbitrage. Efforts at banking outreach may succeed only if there are better incentives at work for such last-mile workers and also those providers who ensure not just basic bank accounts but also products such as accident and life insurance and micro pension schemes.

Political theorists no doubt have to take history of injustice, for example, untouchability, seriously. The concept of historical injustice takes note of a variety of historical wrongs that continue into the present in some form or the other and tend to resist repair.

Two reasons might account for resistance to repair. One, not only are the roots of injustice buried deep in history, injustice itself constitutes economic structures of exploitation, ideologies of discrimination and modes of representation.

Two, the category of historical injustice generally extends across a number of wrongs such as economic deprivation, social discrimination and lack of recognition. The category is complex, not only because of the overlap between a number of wrongs, but because one or the other wrong, generally discrimination, tends to acquire partial autonomy from others. This is borne out by the history of repair in India.

1. Removal of economic discrimination leads to removal of social discrimination.

2. Democratic polity is the best way to repair historical wrongs.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Political theorists no doubt have to take history of injustice, for example, untouchability, seriously. The concept of historical injustice takes note of a variety of historical wrongs that continue into the present in some form or the other and tend to resist repair.

Two reasons might account for resistance to repair. One, not only are the roots of injustice buried deep in history, injustice itself constitutes economic structures of exploitation, ideologies of discrimination and modes of representation.

Two, the category of historical injustice generally extends across a number of wrongs such as economic deprivation, social discrimination and lack of recognition. The category is complex, not only because of the overlap between a number of wrongs, but because one or the other wrong, generally discrimination, tends to acquire partial autonomy from others. This is borne out by the history of repair in India.

1. A society without well educated people cannot be transformed into a modern society.

2. Without acquiring culture, a person's education is not complete.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Education plays a great transformatory role in life, particularly so in this rapidly changing and globalizing world. Universities are the custodians of the intellectual capital and promoters of culture and specialized knowledge.

Culture is an activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and human feelings. A merely well informed man is only a bore on God's earth. What we should aim at is producing men who possess both culture and expert knowledge.

Their expert knowledge will give them a firm ground to start from and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art. Together it will impart meaning to human existence.

1. Large scale soil erosion is a major reason for widespread food insecurity in the world.

2. Soil erosion is mainly anthropogenic.

3. Sustainable management of soils helps in combating climate change.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Soil, in which nearly all our food grows, is a living resource that takes years to form. Yet it can vanish in minutes. Each year 75 billion tonnes of fertile soil is lost to erosion.

That is alarming - and not just for food producers. Soil can trap huge quantities of carbon dioxide in the form of organic carbon and prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere.