Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Direction for [ Question No: 21 To 22 ] :

Directions : Read the given passage carefully and based on the paragraph answer the questions that follow :

The India-China relationship has always been too complex to classify under a single theme. Competition-cooperation-discord is an often-evoked term typology that reflects the contradictory nature of this relationship. Last year witnessed all these facets play out: India's trenchant critique of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), India's entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the dramatic crisis in Doklam on the northern frontiers, the acceleration of multilateral cooperation in the BRICS format, and attempts to foster economic engagement. Yet, nothing exemplified the state of ties more than the Himalayan standoff, which was the closest both countries came to drawing blood in over three decades.

What led to this tailspin in India-China relations ? We will not find the clues in some valley or a narrow stretch of road in the upper Himalayas. Rather, the main reason has been a systematic build-up of negative images of how each side viewed the other's foreign policies, along with a collapse in geopolitical trust. For India, China's attempt to raise its economic and political profile in the subcontinent was seen as an encroachment on, and an affront to, Indian authority in the neighbourhood. For China, India's pursuit of deeper military engagement with the former's main strategic rivals – the U.S. and Japan – was viewed as a serious challenge to its future security. Convinced that only an assertive policy would work, both Delhi and Beijing over the past two years began exploiting leverages and pressure points to keep the other side off balance. India tilted closer to the U.S., China towards Pakistan, and on a scale not witnessed even during the Cold War years.

Yet, neither side has been able to extract any concessions or improve the terms of their bilateral interactions. On a range of issues – the Nuclear Suppliers Group membership, Pakistan-sponsored terror and hydrological cooperation being the most prominent – India failed to receive any give from China. With India's boycott of the BRI, China too found itself confronting not only the only major holdout against its flagship international initiative but also its most suspicious and non-cooperative neighbour in Asia. Beijing also noticed that New Delhi was beginning to openly involve external powers to collaborate with it in an anti-China strategy in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Worse still must have been the spectacle of India brandishing its Tibet card. Such unbridled competition and rising costs to Indian and Chinese interests – and Doklam was the tipping point – appears to have persuaded both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping that their policies were producing zero-sum outcomes and required some kind of a course correction.

Direction for [ Question No: 23 To 27 ] :

Directions : Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow :

In July 1921, Tagore returned home from Europe. He was alarmed to find that many members of the staff at Santiniketan had enthusiastically embraced the non-co-operation movement, thus giving themselves up to 'narrow nationalist ideas that were already out of date'. In the first week of September, Gandhi met Tagore at his family home in Calcutta. They had a long and argumentative conversation about non-co-operation. C. F. Andrews, who was present, wrote that they had 'a difference of temperament so wide that it was extremely difficult to arrive at a common intellectual standing, though the moral ties of friendship remained entirely unbroken…'. Tagore later recalled that he had told Gandhi that 'the whole world is suffering today from the cult of a selfish and short-sighted nationalism. India has all down her history offered hospitality to the invader of whatever nation, creed or colour. I have come to believe that, as Indians, we not only have much to learn from the West but that we also have something to contribute. We dare not therefore shut the West out. But we still have to learn among ourselves how, through education, to collaborate and achieve a common understanding'.

Gandhi's answer is not recorded. But apparently Tagore was not satisfied, since he chose to make his criticisms public in the influential Calcutta journal Modern Review. In his recent travels in the West, said Tagore, he had met many people who sought 'to achieve the unity of man, by destroying the bondage of nationalism'. He had 'watched the faces of European students all aglow with the hope of a united mankind…'. Then he returned home, to be confronted with a political movement suffused with negativity. Are 'we alone to be content with telling the beads of negation', asked Tagore, 'harping on other's faults and proceeding with the erection of Swaraj on a foundation of quarrelsomeness?'

Gandhi responded immediately, defending the non-co-operation movement as 'a refusal to co-operate with the English administrators on their own terms. We say to them, "Come and co-operate with us on our terms, and it will be well for us, for you and the world". … A drowning man cannot save others. In order to be fit to save others, we must try to save ourselves. Indian nationalism is not exclusive, nor aggressive, nor destructive. It is health-giving, religious and therefore humanitarian. India must learn to live before she can aspire to die for humanity. The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cat's teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.'

Direction for [ Question No: 28 To 30 ] :

Read the following excerpt and answer the questions asked at the end. The answers to the questions should be based on the excerpt.

Stray dogs known in scientific literature as free ranging urban dogs are unconfined dogs living in streets. India is home to one of largest population of stray dogs in the world with approximately 30 million stray dogs on streets. These free roaming dogs on streets evoke different emotions such as affection, sympathy, intolerance and fear amongst human beings. The culling of non-rabid stray dogs is now forbidden in India. This change in the thought of the country's judiciary and lack of implementation of effective animal birth control measures have resulted in increasing population. As the stray dog population increases, so do the problems associated with it - dog bites, rabies, noise pollution to name a few. Sadly, this has also forced these countless stray dogs to survive in squalid conditions. For many people, these issues have transformed dogs, who were once considered their beloved companions to their worst enemies. A mill owner killed 60 stray dogs but later felt remorse and went to Gandhiji, who approved of his deeds. This created a controversy, as violence was justified by an epitome of 'Ahimsa'. Respect for all living beings and that all life forms should be protected and not meted out with violence, forms the foundation of the concept of 'Ahimsa'. Gandhiji's endorsement of the mill owner's act could be understood in light of true interpretation of 'Ahimsa'. He thought that the act prevented the dogs from undergoing cruel state of neglect.