ASO 2012 - Main Paper 1

Questions 186 – 190 :

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow :
   The scenario is frightening : Scientists predict that several low-lying island nations would be wiped out from the face of the earth! . The gradual warming of the earth could lead to rise in the sea level and render some of the low-lying islands uninhabitable. If the sea level rises by about two metres, which some scientists say it could, islands like the Maldives could simply disappear. Thousands of Maldivians, including school children, took out a rally in Maldiv recently to demonstrate their concern. The rally was held to coincide with a government meeting called to debate what action the world needs to take to protect the island nations from the impending catastrophe. Environment Ministers of 15 small island nations called upon the industrialised nations to make available resources and technology to the most vulnerable states to help them meet the challenge. The gases that cause global warming are produced mainly by the rich countries. But the poor countries with their large populations, low incomes and fragile agriculture could suffer more than the rich ones if the world warms and sea level rises.

Q. No. 191 – 195 : Read the following passage and answer the items that follow.

Your answers to these items should be based on the passage only. 

Amnesty International's charge that 'tens of thousands of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, are languishing in Indian jails and that prisoners are routinely tortured in this country has to be seen in a much wider context than the organisation's annual report cares to do. In its overall appraisal of 151 countries, Amnesty has accused 112 of torturing prisoners, 63 of harbouring prisoners of conscience, 61 of resorting to political killings and 53 of detaining people without a trial. Of these apparently overlapping categories, India seems to have been excluded from the list of the 61 which undertake political killings. The report has however, pointed out that scores of people in India die of torture in police and military custody and that many also simply disappear. Clearly, only a thin line separates the 61 charged with political murder from the rest. Before coming to such conclusions, however, it may also be necessary to classify the various countries according to their political systems. Torture by the security forces and killings at the behest of the government make no difference to the victims whether they are in a democratic country or a totalitarian one. It is also nobody's case that a democratic country is less culpable than a dictatorship in the event of human rights violations. But the point perhaps still needs to be made that torture or 'disappearances' represent a failure of the system in a democracy in contrast to being an integral part of state policy in a country ruled by an autocrat who is answerable to no one.

India may be guilty of keeping 'tens of thousands' behind bars and of the other human rights abuses mentioned by Amnesty, but it still remains a qualitatively different place from a totalitarian country. It is in this respect that Amnesty has been less than fair. It has chosen to ignore the distinctions between the good, the bad and the ugly. The openness of Indian society will be evident to anyone who spends half an hour in one of its chaotic marketplaces or visits the law courts or watches a political rally or reads a newspaper or strikes up a conversation with any person on the roads. There is no sense of fear in India, as in a dictatorship. There is also scope for securing relief from the heavy-handed behaviour of the authorities, even if the human rights commission has not yet lived up to expectations. Unless such points are recognised, Amnesty's assessment will seem to be a dry recital of statistics which may pillory India simply because of its larger population. Mercifully, Amnesty nowadays at least notes that the terrorists also indulge in human rights violations and that India has to cope with several insurgencies fomented by a country where the military does not always seem to be under the control of the elected government. True, there is much that is wrong in India's prison system and with the way the terrorist challenge is sometimes met, but the stress should be on activating the self-correcting mechanism within a democracy and not merely on painting a grim, even biased, picture.

Q.No.196-200: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it: 

On August 15, 1947, India was granted independence from British colonial dominance. This was an event of international significance. From this day onwards, the Indian Union assumed a role in world politics that was appropriate enough to modify the thinking of nations. Concepts like non-alignment, tolerance, non-violence and peaceful co-existence were introduced by India into the international vocabulary.

"Our dreams concern India", said the first Prime Minister of the country, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, on the eve of achieving freedom, "but they also concern the whole world, for the world has become one".

Mahatma Gandhi chose Nehru to become the first PM of independent India. With his vision of unity of the nation, he became the architect of modern India. It was to be a federal state based on secularism - the commitment to an Indian identity, which was above all races, castes, and religions. It was a vision of extraordinary dimensions.

Both Nehru as well as his daughter and successor, Smt. Indira Gandhi, were well aware that only a firm anchorage in the Indian identity could unite the nation and enable it to make an impact on the world. In these days of mutual interdependence, the western powers and America cannot afford to ignore what is happening in this region. It is possible that the fate of the Asian democracies would one day be decided on the banks of the Ganges. If India fails to remain a democracy, this would trigger the fall of the whole of South and South-East Asia. That is why the Indian Prime Minister has to play a role that goes well beyond duties related to internal affairs only. It is of international political significance.