State, Politics and Development Questions and Answers

Answer: B

India chose a mixed economy, with both private and State enterprise, after independence. The Industrial Policy Resolutions and the Five Year Plans reserved basic and heavy industries for the State while leaving a large space for private enterprise. A purely private path or a purely State path would describe a capitalist or a command economy, and the Gandhian model of village-centred small-scale industry was admired but not adopted as the national strategy. So the correct choice is private and State enterprise together.

Answer: A

The correct matching is a-iv, b-iii, c-ii, d-i, which is option A. Liberal development thinking is associated with Gunnar Myrdal. Uneven development is Samir Amin's theme in his analysis of unequal exchange. The centre-periphery model is Andre Gunder Frank's, from dependency theory, where the periphery is held in underdevelopment by the metropolitan centre. World-system analysis is Immanuel Wallerstein's. Options B, C and D each give at least one of these ideas to the wrong thinker.

Answer: D

Widow remarriage is not an indicator of human development, so option D is correct. The human development approach measures the expansion of people's capabilities, using health and longevity, education and a decent standard of living. Gender equality and improved quality of life are widely used aims or indicators in human development reports, and scientific orientation is among the attitudinal changes associated with development in this paper's framing. Widow remarriage is a social reform practice, not a measured indicator.

Answer: A

The Gender Inequality Index covers reproductive health (maternal mortality and adolescent fertility), empowerment (parliamentary seats and secondary education) and labour market participation. Adolescent fertility, political representation and labour force participation are therefore included. The capacity to determine one's own life chances is a broad idea related to capabilities and agency, not a component of the index, so it is the correct answer to the 'not included' question.

Answer: B

Modernization seen as the move from Gemeinschaft (community) to Gesellschaft (association or society), with the progressive loss of community amid growing individualism, is the idea of Ferdinand Toennies. In Gemeinschaft, ties are personal and based on kinship and shared values, whereas in Gesellschaft they are impersonal and contractual. Weber studied rationalisation, Etzioni the active society and David Riesman the changing character types in The Lonely Crowd, so Toennies is the answer.

Answer: A

The correct matching is a-i, b-ii, c-iii, d-iv, which is option A. Selig Harrison wrote India: The Most Dangerous Decades. Lloyd and Susan Rudolph wrote The Modernity of Tradition. B. Baviskar wrote The Politics of Development, on sugar co-operatives in Maharashtra, and Myron Weiner wrote The Politics of Scarcity. Option B reverses the whole sequence, and options C and D mix the authors and titles in other ways, so only option A is right.

Answer: C

Women's Role in Economic Development was written by Esther Boserup, the Danish economist, in 1970. She showed how modernization and agricultural change affected women's work, and that development often reduced their status. Her book began the Women in Development approach. Catharine Scott, Nancy Hartsock and Dorothy Smith are associated with feminist thought on development, standpoint theory and sociology, but did not write this book.

Answer: C

Gunnar Myrdal described India's development in the 1960s as that of a soft state, in Asian Drama. By this he meant that the government lacked discipline in enforcing laws and policies, tolerated corruption and could not impose social obligations on its people. Max Weber wrote on bureaucracy and the Protestant ethic, Andre Beteille on caste and inequality, and Amartya Sen on welfare economics, so Myrdal is correct.

Answer: A

The reasons for insurgency in the North Eastern region are ethnic conflicts and development deprivation. The region has many ethnic groups with competing claims over identity and territory, and a long-standing sense of neglect in economic development and infrastructure has fed alienation from the state. The other pairs name factors that are present in other parts of India as well. Land alienation, poverty, criminalisation of politics, corruption, religious fundamentalism and terrorism are not the reasons usually given as the specific cause of insurgency in this region.

Answer: B

Both the assertion and the reason are true. Nepotism, favouritism and corruption are widely reported in Indian public life, and the lack of political will to enforce the law and punish offenders is commonly cited as a reason for it. The question only asks whether each statement is true, and both can be accepted on that basis. The options that call either statement false are therefore wrong, and the option that makes only the assertion true overlooks that the reason is also an accepted explanation.