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Reading Comprehension for Bank Exams
This is the 7th set of the Reading Comprehension series for bank and insurance exams. Reading Comprehension plays an important role in the English section of banking exams. Because English is not subject it should be treated as a language and for this, we should read English on regular basis in any form like an editorial, or story.
This post is for the bank exam candidates preparing for bank exams like SBI PO, IBPS PO, and RRB PO. If any candidate has any doubt regarding any question or topic, he/she can comment in the comment section provided below the post.
Set-1. Parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are often at loggerheads with one another, and any coordinated action among them is never easy. Contradictions are many, at the ideological and personal levels; and they represent conflicting interest groups in most cases. Some tend to be guarded in their approach to the BJP, and when they turn strident against it, it is most often to safeguard their home turfs. The meetings between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and other party leaders such as the Congress’s Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, the CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and the Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal, in New Delhi were exploratory rather than decisive. What is clear, however, is an increasing realisation among non-BJP parties that mutual animosities might turn them into easy prey for the BJP, whose hunger for power is infinite. The fact that most of these non-BJP parties were born out of antagonism to the Congress — and the BJP’s national rival — makes finding common ground even more evasive. The BJP is the hegemon in the Hindi heartland, while it faces resistance from regional parties in several States. An alliance between the regional parties does not lead to any transfer of votes as they exist in different regions. Some of these parties are rivals at the State level, as in the case of the Left and the Congress in Kerala. Therefore, pre-poll alliances are of limited consequence, generally speaking. But there are certain States where parties could come together to aggregate anti-BJP votes, most importantly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where several parties are in the fray. A lot will depend on how well the Congress manages to galvanise support in States where it is the BJP’s primary opponent, as in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. Social justice parties such as the Janata Dal (U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, and the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh can coordinate their actions with Congress. Mr Nitish Kumar’s role is important from this point of view, but social justice politics itself is facing a crisis of legitimacy in the face of Hindutva. Alliances are important, but a shared programme and vision, amplified by sustained outreach to the public, are more important. The significant differences of opinion among key Opposition leaders over the Adani controversy, and V.D. Savarkar are cases in point. Any Opposition front will have to concede the wide variety of opinions and interests that exist among its key actors. The challenge for them is to discover common ground where they can converge. A puritan idealistic pursuit is an untimely luxury at the moment; in any case, that will not be a match to the ideological cohesiveness of the BJP.
Set-2. The visit by Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova to India, the first such by a senior government official from the East European country since its invasion by Russia, demonstrates Kyiv’s desire to build tighter ties with New Delhi and seek its help in resolving the conflict. Earlier, Ukraine had publicly expressed its displeasure over India’s position on the war. In August last year, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had attacked India’s energy purchases from Russia, saying it involved “Ukrainian blood”, and that Kyiv expected “more practical support” from New Delhi. But Ms Dzhaparova sounded more pragmatic when she said Ukraine did not want to instruct India on its energy and economic ties with other countries, but that her nation was fighting an existential battle. The war has left India in a difficult position. Russia is a historical partner in which India has deep defence ties and there is no easy, immediate alternative here. And, Russia’s aggression is a naked violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and international laws. The war has also made India’s ties with its Western partners complicated as the trans-Atlantic powers, led by the United States, have launched an economic war against Russia, from which India and most of the Global South have stayed away.
What India has done is to try and navigate this maze of geopolitics through realpolitik — it has refused to condemn Russia, maintained defence and trade ties, as well as expressed its uneasiness with the war and called for respecting the territorial integrity of all nations. But as the war drags on, this balancing act could be interpreted as inactiveness. India is the chair of the G-20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and will be pressed to do more to show global leadership and help end the war. The conflict has hurt not only Europe but also the entire world and there is growing consensus among the countries in the Global South that the hostilities should cease at the earliest. China and Brazil have sensed this urgency and have hinted at playing a bigger role in brokering peace. India should not shy away. New Delhi has good ties with Moscow, and Ms Dzhaparova’s visit suggests that Kyiv is also looking to India to play a bigger role in peacemaking. India’s policy towards the conflict is rooted in its strategic neutrality. But neutrality does not mean that it should do nothing, waiting for the conflict to run its course. It should empathise more vocally with the victim, raise the voice and interests of the Global South, and call for upholding international laws and sovereignty of all states, while at the same time pushing for a pragmatic and permanent solution to the conflict.
Set-3. For most businesses, risk diversification is a good thing. Yet, late last year, Morris Chang, who heads Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, the world’s largest semiconductor company, sounded downbeat as plans to break ground on a new plant in the US proceeded apace. Globalization and free trade, he insisted, were almost dead. He grumbled that the US government’s plans to bring semiconductor manufacturing home were “doomed to fail." Yet Chang knows better than most that, controversial as the industrial policy is because it usually comes with higher costs, his new plant in Arizona reduces the risk that Beijing will enjoy dominant control of chip production if it were to attack and overpower its tiny neighbour.
For most businesses, risk diversification is a good thing. Yet, late last year, Morris Chang, who heads Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, the world’s largest semiconductor company, sounded downbeat as plans to break ground on a new plant in the US proceeded apace. Globalization and free trade, he insisted, were almost dead. He grumbled that the US government’s plans to bring semiconductor manufacturing home were “doomed to fail." Yet Chang knows better than most that, controversial as the industrial policy is because it usually comes with higher costs, his new plant in Arizona reduces the risk that Beijing will enjoy dominant control of chip production if it were to attack and overpower its tiny neighbour.
This week, it was the turn of French President Emmanuel Macron to underplay that worryingly likely possibility. Macron went further in a reference to Taiwan when he said Europe should not fall into a “trap" and become involved in “crises that are not ours." Commentators in China said Macron was “brilliant". Pity Taiwan. With a population of just 24 million and an army a fraction the size of China’s, it needs the world’s support. Instead, multilateral agencies and global leaders have pandered to China’s claim that it is a renegade province by not recognizing Taiwan as an independent country with a vibrant democracy. Macron’s blunder and Chang’s grumble about the costs of moving production overseas are just the latest examples of such short-sightedness.
As Beijing has stepped up its military exercises near Taiwan over the past several days and increased its disregard of Taiwanese airspace by sending fighter jets repeatedly into it, Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen, a brave woman in an impossibly difficult job, sounded all the right notes on a recent visit to the US, but this was undermined by a simultaneous visit to China by the leader of opposition Kuomintang party (KMT). Ma Ying-jeou, who was president of Taiwan between 2008 and 2016 when the KMT was in power, played to China’s script by recalling its past humiliation by foreign powers.
This is a theme that China has milked from Mao to its present modernity. But President Xi Jinping has a particular dislike for the West, as evidenced by his strengthening his alliance with Russia in a summit with President Vladimir Putin. In 2009, on a visit to Mexico before he was even president, Xi Jinping memorably voiced it thus: “There are some well-fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs," he said. “China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you."
And yet, since Xi became head of the Chinese Communist Party more than a decade ago, Beijing’s credit policies to boost infrastructure projects for its state-owned giants have created debt traps for many developing countries. Beijing promised to govern Hong Kong as a semi-autonomous, liberal financial centre when the city was handed back to it by Britain in 1997. But, in December, Jimmy Lai, the city’s leading newspaper publisher, was sentenced to almost six years in prison, allegedly for violating a lease contract for the headquarters of the tabloid he used to run. Several so-called pro-democracy Hong Kong activists and legislators are in jail or have sought asylum overseas.
