Read the following information carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Eight friends U, V, W, X, Y, Z, M and N are sitting around a circular table, all are facing inside the centre. Each person belongs to different countries Korea, Japan, Bhutan, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and China, but not necessarily in the same order.
The person who is from Korea is not an immediate neighbour of the person who is from Japan. The person who is from Japan sits third to the right of M. Neither U nor Z is from Japan. V sits third to the right of N. Only one person sits between W and the person who is from Bhutan. U and Z are immediate neighbours of each other. The person who is from France sits second to the right of W. The person who is from China sits second to the right of U. Two persons sit between X and the person who is from Germany. X is not from Japan. The person who is from Italy sits second to the left of U. N is neither from Japan nor from France. W is an immediate neighbour of M.

Who among the following is from Austria?

Read the following information carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Eight friends U, V, W, X, Y, Z, M and N are sitting around a circular table, all are facing inside the centre. Each person belongs to different countries Korea, Japan, Bhutan, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and China, but not necessarily in the same order.
The person who is from Korea is not an immediate neighbour of the person who is from Japan. The person who is from Japan sits third to the right of M. Neither U nor Z is from Japan. V sits third to the right of N. Only one person sits between W and the person who is from Bhutan. U and Z are immediate neighbours of each other. The person who is from France sits second to the right of W. The person who is from China sits second to the right of U. Two persons sit between X and the person who is from Germany. X is not from Japan. The person who is from Italy sits second to the left of U. N is neither from Japan nor from France. W is an immediate neighbour of M.

What is the position of Z with respect to the person who is from Japan?

Read the following information carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Eight friends U, V, W, X, Y, Z, M and N are sitting around a circular table, all are facing inside the centre. Each person belongs to different countries Korea, Japan, Bhutan, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and China, but not necessarily in the same order.
The person who is from Korea is not an immediate neighbour of the person who is from Japan. The person who is from Japan sits third to the right of M. Neither U nor Z is from Japan. V sits third to the right of N. Only one person sits between W and the person who is from Bhutan. U and Z are immediate neighbours of each other. The person who is from France sits second to the right of W. The person who is from China sits second to the right of U. Two persons sit between X and the person who is from Germany. X is not from Japan. The person who is from Italy sits second to the left of U. N is neither from Japan nor from France. W is an immediate neighbour of M.

M is from which of the following country?

Read the following information carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Eight friends U, V, W, X, Y, Z, M and N are sitting around a circular table, all are facing inside the centre. Each person belongs to different countries Korea, Japan, Bhutan, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and China, but not necessarily in the same order.
The person who is from Korea is not an immediate neighbour of the person who is from Japan. The person who is from Japan sits third to the right of M. Neither U nor Z is from Japan. V sits third to the right of N. Only one person sits between W and the person who is from Bhutan. U and Z are immediate neighbours of each other. The person who is from France sits second to the right of W. The person who is from China sits second to the right of U. Two persons sit between X and the person who is from Germany. X is not from Japan. The person who is from Italy sits second to the left of U. N is neither from Japan nor from France. W is an immediate neighbour of M.

Y is from which of the following country?

Read the following information carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Eight friends U, V, W, X, Y, Z, M and N are sitting around a circular table, all are facing inside the centre. Each person belongs to different countries Korea, Japan, Bhutan, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and China, but not necessarily in the same order.
The person who is from Korea is not an immediate neighbour of the person who is from Japan. The person who is from Japan sits third to the right of M. Neither U nor Z is from Japan. V sits third to the right of N. Only one person sits between W and the person who is from Bhutan. U and Z are immediate neighbours of each other. The person who is from France sits second to the right of W. The person who is from China sits second to the right of U. Two persons sit between X and the person who is from Germany. X is not from Japan. The person who is from Italy sits second to the left of U. N is neither from Japan nor from France. W is an immediate neighbour of M.

What is the position of M with respect to the one who is from Italy?

Study the following information carefully and answer the given questions.

Which of the following is the code for ‘rockstar’?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

Study the following information carefully and answer the given questions.

Which of the following word is coded as ‘$’?

Study the following information carefully and answer the given questions.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

Study the following information carefully and answer the given questions.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

Study the following information carefully and answer the given questions.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

Read the following formation carefully and answer the questions given below:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I lives on 9 different floors of a building, ground floor is numbered as 1 and topmost floor is numbered as 9. They like different fruits Mango, Banana, Pears, Peach, Pomegranate, Apple, Guava, Apricot, and Blackberry but not necessarily in the same order. A does not like Guava. There are three floors between A and I, who likes Pomegranate. H likes Pears and lives immediately above the floor on which A lives. There is only one floor between H and G, who likes Peach. F likes Banana and lives below the floor on which I lives. F does not live on even number floor. There are only two floors between F and E, who likes Mango. A lives above I and G. B likes Apricot and lives below the floor on which F lives. G does not live on 4th and 5th floor and lives on odd numbered floor. B lives on even number floor. There is as many as floor between B and one, who likes Apple and as between A and C.

A likes which of the following fruit?

Read the following formation carefully and answer the questions given below:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I lives on 9 different floors of a building, ground floor is numbered as 1 and topmost floor is numbered as 9. They like different fruits Mango, Banana, Pears, Peach, Pomegranate, Apple, Guava, Apricot, and Blackberry but not necessarily in the same order. A does not like Guava. There are three floors between A and I, who likes Pomegranate. H likes Pears and lives immediately above the floor on which A lives. There is only one floor between H and G, who likes Peach. F likes Banana and lives below the floor on which I lives. F does not live on even number floor. There are only two floors between F and E, who likes Mango. A lives above I and G. B likes Apricot and lives below the floor on which F lives. G does not live on 4th and 5th floor and lives on odd numbered floor. B lives on even number floor. There is as many as floor between B and one, who likes Apple and as between A and C.

D lives on which of the following floor?

Read the following formation carefully and answer the questions given below:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I lives on 9 different floors of a building, ground floor is numbered as 1 and topmost floor is numbered as 9. They like different fruits Mango, Banana, Pears, Peach, Pomegranate, Apple, Guava, Apricot, and Blackberry but not necessarily in the same order. A does not like Guava. There are three floors between A and I, who likes Pomegranate. H likes Pears and lives immediately above the floor on which A lives. There is only one floor between H and G, who likes Peach. F likes Banana and lives below the floor on which I lives. F does not live on even number floor. There are only two floors between F and E, who likes Mango. A lives above I and G. B likes Apricot and lives below the floor on which F lives. G does not live on 4th and 5th floor and lives on odd numbered floor. B lives on even number floor. There is as many as floor between B and one, who likes Apple and as between A and C.

H is related to Peach and C is related to Banana, in the same way F is related to?

Read the following formation carefully and answer the questions given below:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I lives on 9 different floors of a building, ground floor is numbered as 1 and topmost floor is numbered as 9. They like different fruits Mango, Banana, Pears, Peach, Pomegranate, Apple, Guava, Apricot, and Blackberry but not necessarily in the same order. A does not like Guava. There are three floors between A and I, who likes Pomegranate. H likes Pears and lives immediately above the floor on which A lives. There is only one floor between H and G, who likes Peach. F likes Banana and lives below the floor on which I lives. F does not live on even number floor. There are only two floors between F and E, who likes Mango. A lives above I and G. B likes Apricot and lives below the floor on which F lives. G does not live on 4th and 5th floor and lives on odd numbered floor. B lives on even number floor. There is as many as floor between B and one, who likes Apple and as between A and C.

Who among following lives on 6th floor?

Read the following formation carefully and answer the questions given below:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I lives on 9 different floors of a building, ground floor is numbered as 1 and topmost floor is numbered as 9. They like different fruits Mango, Banana, Pears, Peach, Pomegranate, Apple, Guava, Apricot, and Blackberry but not necessarily in the same order. A does not like Guava. There are three floors between A and I, who likes Pomegranate. H likes Pears and lives immediately above the floor on which A lives. There is only one floor between H and G, who likes Peach. F likes Banana and lives below the floor on which I lives. F does not live on even number floor. There are only two floors between F and E, who likes Mango. A lives above I and G. B likes Apricot and lives below the floor on which F lives. G does not live on 4th and 5th floor and lives on odd numbered floor. B lives on even number floor. There is as many as floor between B and one, who likes Apple and as between A and C.

How many floors are there between the E and the floor on which B lives?

The wheat sold by a shopkeeper contained 10% low quality wheat. What quantity of good quality wheat should be added to 150 kg of wheat so that percentage of low quality wheat becomes 5%?

A container contained 80 kg of milk. From this container, 8 kg of mixture was taken out and replaced by water. This process was further repeated two times. How much milk is now contained by the container ?

The annual earning of Mr. Sikkawala is Rs. 4 lakhs per annum for the first year of his job and his expenditure was 50%. Later on for the next 3 years his income increases by Rs. 40,000 per annum and the saving was 40%, 30% and 20% of the income respectively.Then the total saving is what percent of total expenditure?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

By mixing two brands of tea and selling the mixture at the rate of 177 per kg, a shopkeeper makes a profit of 18%. If to every 2 kg of one brand costing Rs. 200 per kg, 3 kg of the other brand is added, then how much per kg does the other brand cost ?

Table given below shows the total population of 5 cities in 5 different years. Another table show percentage rise of population in these cities every years. Study the table and solve the given questions:

Note:-
• Percentage rise is in population is consistent every year.
• Some data is missing in the table. Find the data according to the question.

Find the ratio of population of city D in 2013 to population of city A in the same year?

Table given below shows the total population of 5 cities in 5 different years. Another table show percentage rise of population in these cities every years. Study the table and solve the given questions:

Note:-
• Percentage rise is in population is consistent every year.
• Some data is missing in the table. Find the data according to the question.

Population of city B in 2016 is approximately what percent more than the population of city C in 2012 ?

Table given below shows the total population of 5 cities in 5 different years. Another table show percentage rise of population in these cities every years. Study the table and solve the given questions:

Note:-
• Percentage rise is in population is consistent every year.
• Some data is missing in the table. Find the data according to the question.

Table given below shows the total population of 5 cities in 5 different years. Another table show percentage rise of population in these cities every years. Study the table and solve the given questions:

Note:-
• Percentage rise is in population is consistent every year.
• Some data is missing in the table. Find the data according to the question.

Population of city C in 2014 is what percentage of the population of city B in 2012?

Table given below shows the total population of 5 cities in 5 different years. Another table show percentage rise of population in these cities every years. Study the table and solve the given questions:

Note:-
• Percentage rise is in population is consistent every year.
• Some data is missing in the table. Find the data according to the question.

What is the average population of city C, D and E in year 2012 ?

Table given below shows the total population of 5 cities in 5 different years. Another table show percentage rise of population in these cities every years. Study the table and solve the given questions:

Note:-
• Percentage rise is in population is consistent every year.
• Some data is missing in the table. Find the data according to the question.

What is the ratio of the population of city B and C together in 2012 to the city D and E together in 2013?

An egg seller sells his eggs only in the packs of 3 eggs, 6 eggs, 9 eggs, 12 eggs etc., but the rate is not necessarily uniform. One day Raju (which is not the same egg seller) purchased at the rate of 3 eggs for a rupee and the next hour he purchased equal number of eggs at the rate of 6 eggs for a rupee. Next day he sold all the eggs at the rate of 9 eggs for Rs. 2.What is his percentage profit or loss ?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

The compound interest accrued on an amount of Rs. 25500 at the end of 3 year is Rs. 8440.50. What would be the simple interest accrued on the same amount at the same rate in the same period ?

The sum of the cubes of three numbers is 584 and the ratio of the first to second and also of second to the third is 1 : 2. What is the sum of the numbers?

A man ordered 4 pairs of black socks and some pairs of brown socks. The price of a black pair is double that of a brown pair. While preparing the bill, the clerk interchanged the number of black and brown pairs by mistake which increased the bill by 50%. The ratio of the number of black and brown pairs of sock in the original order was:

The work done by a man, a woman and a child is in the ratio of 3 : 2 : 1. There are 20 men, 30 women and 36 children in a factory. Their weekly wages amount to Rs. 780, which is divided in the ratio of work done by the men, women and children. What will be the wages of 15 men, 21 women and 30 children for 2 weeks ?

According to a plan, a drilling team has to drill to a depth of 270 metres below the ground level. For the first three days the team drilled as per the plan. However, subsequently finding that their resources were getting underutilised according to the plan, it started to drill 8 metres more than the plan every day. Therefore, a day before the planned date they had drilled to a depth of 280 metres. How many metres of drilling was the plan for each day.

Jagriti after travelling 50 km meets a Swami who counsels her to go slower. She then proceeds at ¾ of his former speed and arrives at her destination 35 minutes late. Had the meeting occurred 24 km further Jagriti would have reached its destination 25 minutes late. The speed of Jagriti is

A man can row a certain distance against the stream in six hours. However, he would take two hours less to cover the same distance with the current. If the speed of the current is 2 kmph, then what is the rowing speed in still water?

Ram runs 7/4 times as fast as Shyam, If Ram gives Shyam a start of 300 m, how far must the winning post be if both Ram and Shyam have to end the race at the same time ?

There is an error of +1.5% while measuring the radius of a sphere. What is the percentage error in calculating the volume of the sphere? [Round off up to one decimal place]

Graph shown below show the percentage distribution of males, females and children in six villages. PIE-CHART shows the percentage distribution of total population in six villages. Read the graph and solve the following questions.

What is the difference between the number of female and children together in Kheri village to the number of males and females together in Nangal village ?

Graph shown below show the percentage distribution of males, females and children in six villages. PIE-CHART shows the percentage distribution of total population in six villages. Read the graph and solve the following questions.

Find the ratio between the number of males in Majan & Berwal together to number of females in Kheri and Beripur together.

Graph shown below show the percentage distribution of males, females and children in six villages. PIE-CHART shows the percentage distribution of total population in six villages. Read the graph and solve the following questions.

Out of the total population of Teekli and Kheri, 30% of males, 20% of female and 10% of children are illiterate, then find the number of person those are literate.

Graph shown below show the percentage distribution of males, females and children in six villages. PIE-CHART shows the percentage distribution of total population in six villages. Read the graph and solve the following questions.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Graph shown below show the percentage distribution of males, females and children in six villages. PIE-CHART shows the percentage distribution of total population in six villages. Read the graph and solve the following questions.

In Nangal village, 40% are uneducated and the ratio of male, females and children those are educated is 2 : 1: 1. Then find the number of uneducated males?

In the figure below, the radius of the bigger circle is cm and the radius of all the smaller circles are equal. Each of the smaller circles touches two of the other three smaller circles and the larger circle as shown. Find the area  of the shaded portion.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 

A right circular cone is divided into 3 portions by planes parallel to the base as shown in the figure.
The height of each portion is 1 unit. Calculate.

1. The ratio of the volume of A to the volume of B.
2. The ratio of the volume of B to that C.

In how many ways can a team of 11 cricketers be chosen from 6 bowlers,4 wicket keepers and 11 batsmen to give a majority of batsmen if at least 4 bowlers are to be included and there is one wicket keeper ?

In how many ways can 10 books of English and 8 books of physics be placed in a row on a shelf so that two books of physics may not be together?

Two small squares on a chess board are choosen at random. Find the probability that they have a common side :

Each question below is followed by two Statements [I] and [II]. You have to determine whether the data given in the statements are sufficient for answering the question. You should use the data and your knowledge of Mathematics to choose between the possible answers.
Give answer

In how many days 8 women can complete the work?
[I]. 10 men & 12 Women can finish the work in days.
[II]. 5 Men and 6 women can finish the work in days.

The main characteristic of fourth generation was ______.

How many write cycles are allowed to EEPROM?

Which among the following is the first general purpose electronic computer?

Which memory appears to exist as main storage although most of it is supported by data held in secondary storage?

Rabdology was the technology used for calculation purpose introduced in which year?

If you wish to extend the length of the network without having the signal degrade, you would use a _____.

What is a Firewall in Computer Network?

The process of trading goods over the internet is known as _________.

C was developed by ______.

Which of the following is a programming language?

What is the maximum limit of free cloud storage on Google drive?

Which of the following is the fastest media of data transfer?

A special, high-speed storage area within the CPU in which all data must be represented before it can be processed is called _____.

What type of web technology creates an online community where people can make statements and others can read and respond to those statements?

Access control based on a person’s fingerprints is an example of _________.

LANs can be connected by which of the following devices which operate on the data link layer?

The data to be encrypted at the sender site is called _____ and the data to be decrypted at the receiver end is called _____.

Java was introduced by which among the following organisation?

Which of the following is the communication protocol that sets the standard used by every computer that accesses web based information?

Which of the following is related with 202.191.149.218?

Which operating system is defined as self-contained in device and resident in ROM?

30,000 bytes is nearly equal to _________.

________ is a self-contained step-by-step set of operations to be performed.

Which among the following options is the line that describes the contents of the message while sending an e-mail?

What is the function of control unit?

Microsoft Word is an example of:

The operating system is the most common type of ______ software.

The operating system acts as a device management that keeps track of devices. Channels and control units is called as _______.

When the computer is already ON, then the process to restart it is called

The icons on the __________ are organized according to function and according to the most commonly used commands in MSWord.

Which menu is selected to print?

What does ASCII stand for?

A device that not only provides surge protection, but also furnishes the computer with battery backup power during a power outage is ______

Which of the following is a small microprocessor-based computer designed to be used by one person at a time?

The insert, cap lock and num lock all are examples of __________ keys.

The arranging of data in a logical sequence is called____.

Which of the following is a Web browser?

The most widely used code that represents each character as a unique 8-bit code is _______.

What does BASIC stands for?

__________ ensures secure transfer of data over an unsecured network, such as the Internet.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. 
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still legal and active in some countries. Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months.
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchevs denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many and a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive. Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those killed by communist regimes (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the West, and provided a powerful counterweight to Western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in south-west Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi party.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.

Among all the apprehensions that Mr. Goran Lindblad expresses against communism, which one gets admitted, although indirectly, by the author?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. 
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still legal and active in some countries. Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months.
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchevs denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many and a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive. Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those killed by communist regimes (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the West, and provided a powerful counterweight to Western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in south-west Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi party.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.

What, according to the author, is the real reason for a renewed attack against communism?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. 
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still legal and active in some countries. Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months.
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchevs denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many and a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive. Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those killed by communist regimes (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the West, and provided a powerful counterweight to Western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in south-west Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi party.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.

The author cites examples of atrocities perpetrated by European colonial regimes in order to

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. 
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still legal and active in some countries. Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months.
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchevs denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many and a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive. Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those killed by communist regimes (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the West, and provided a powerful counterweight to Western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in south-west Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi party.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.

Why, according to the author, is Nazism closer to colonialism than it is to communism?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. 
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still legal and active in some countries. Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months.
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchevs denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many and a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive. Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those killed by communist regimes (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the West, and provided a powerful counterweight to Western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in south-west Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi party.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.

Which of the following cannot be inferred as a compelling reason for the silence of the Council of Europe on colonial atrocities?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. 
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still legal and active in some countries. Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months.
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchevs denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many and a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive. Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those killed by communist regimes (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the West, and provided a powerful counterweight to Western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in south-west Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi party.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.

Choose the word/group of words which is most OPPOSITE in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Excoriation

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. 
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, linking them with Nazism and complaining that communist parties are still legal and active in some countries. Now Goran Lindblad, the conservative Swedish MP behind the resolution, wants to go further. Demands that European Ministers launch a continent-wide anti-communist campaign – including school textbook revisions, official memorial days, and museums – only narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Lindblad pledged to bring the wider plans back to the Council of Europe in the coming months.
He has chosen a good year for his ideological offensive: this is the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchevs denunciation of Josef Stalin and the subsequent Hungarian uprising, which will doubtless be the cue for further excoriation of the communist record. Paradoxically, given that there is no communist government left in Europe outside Moldova, the attacks have if anything, become more extreme as time has gone on. A clue as to why that might be can be found in the rambling report by Mr. Lindblad that led to the Council of Europe declaration. Blaming class struggle and public ownership, he explained different elements of communist ideology such as equality or social justice still seduce many and a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive. Perhaps the real problem for Mr. Lindblad and his right-wing allies in Eastern Europe is that communism is not dead enough – and they will only be content when they have driven a stake through its heart.
The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sorbibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions. Nor did the Soviet Union launch the most devastating war in history at a cost of more than 50 million lives – in fact it played the decisive role in the defeat of the German war machine. Mr. Lindblad and the Council of Europe adopt as fact the wildest estimates of those killed by communist regimes (mostly in famines) from the fiercely contested Black Book of Communism, which also underplays the number of deaths attributable to Hitler. But, in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why Western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s. For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialization, mass education, job security, and huge advances in social and gender equality. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the West, and provided a powerful counterweight to Western global domination.
It would be easier to take the Council of Europe’s condemnation of communist state crimes seriously if it had also seen fit to denounce the far bloodier record of European colonialism – which only finally came to an end in the 1970s. This was a system of racist despotism, which dominated the globe in Stalin’s time. And while there is precious little connection between the ideas of fascism and communism, there is an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. The terms lebensraum and konzentrationslager were both first used by the German colonial regime in south-west Africa (now Namibia), which committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples and bequeathed its ideas and personnel directly to the Nazi party.
Around 10 million Congolese died as a result of Belgian forced labour and mass murder in the early twentieth century; tens of millions perished in avoidable or enforced famines in British-ruled India; up to a million Algerians died in their war for independence, while controversy now rages in France about a new law requiring teachers to put a positive spin on colonial history. Comparable atrocities were carried out by all European colonialists, but not a word of condemnation from the Council of Europe. Presumably, European lives count for more.
No major twentieth century political tradition is without blood on its hands, but battles over history are more about the future than the past. Part of the current enthusiasm in official Western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today’s Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order – and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering. With the new imperialism now being resisted in the Muslim world and Latin America, growing international demands for social justice and ever greater doubts about whether the environmental crisis can be solved within the existing economic system, the pressure for alternatives will increase.

Choose the word/group of words which is most SIMILAR in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Denounce

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Interlinking of rivers is a very expensive proposal. It has huge adverse environmental impacts on land, forests, biodiversity, rivers and the livelihood of millions of people. It is a socially disruptive proposition. It will not only add to climate change impact (destruction of forests means destruction of carbon sinks, and reservoirs in tropical climate are known sources of methane and carbon dioxide), but will also reduce our capacity to adapt to climate change. Take, for example, the Ken-Betwa link which is the government’s top priority. The link will facilitate export of water from drought-prone Bundelkhand to the upper Betwa basin, as the detailed project report (DPR) makes clear. The Ken-Betwa link’s hydrology is effectively a state secret, so there is no way to check if the claim of Ken river being surplus is valid. There has been no credible environmental impact assessment of the link and no public hearings in canal and downstream affected areas. The link’s environmental management plan is still being prepared. The Ken-Betwa link threatens about 200 sq. km of the Panna tiger reserve, and with it the Ken river and large parts of Bundelkhand. Yet, it does not have an environment clearance, a final forest clearance. In fact, both forest and wildlife clearance recommendations are under the condition that the power project will be taken out of the forest/protected area, but the environment clearance recommendation assumes the project will be inside the forest/protected area. So, even that is invalid. The government justifies the Ken-Betwa link, and indeed the river interlinking project as a whole, by saying that it will provide irrigation, water supply, hydropower and flood control. But we need to understand that most of India’s water benefits, including irrigation, come from groundwater. In fact, in the past two-and-a-half decades, the net national irrigated area from big dams has decreased by about 1.5 million hectares from a peak of 17.79 million ha in 1991-92, according to government data. But in the same period, India’s total irrigated area has gone up—primarily due to groundwater. Groundwater is our water lifeline and whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not, groundwater is going to remain our water lifeline for decades to come. However, our current use of groundwater is not sustainable. The focus of our water resources development should be on how the groundwater lifeline can be sustained. Will Interlinking of rivers help in this? No, since Interlinking of rivers entails a large number of dams that will lead to destruction of rivers, forests, wetlands and local water bodies, which are major ground water recharge mechanisms. As far as hydropower is concerned, it is clear that large hydropower projects are no longer a viable option in India. The power minister has repeatedly said in Parliament over the last two years that hydropower projects of over 11,000MW are stuck due to lack of finances and questions over viability. The chief minister of Himachal Pradesh has stated that private developers are exiting the sector as they consider the projects to be non-viable. The situation in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is similar. It costs over Rs10 crore to produce one megawatt of hydropower, which in turn produces less than four million units of electricity. This means the per unit cost of power from such projects is in excess of Rs8 per unit, when there are no takers for power that costs even Rs3 per unit. In any case, Interlinking of rivers will be needing more power to lift the water than what it is likely to produce. The other problem with the river interlinking project is that of storing large quantities of waters. Most of the sites suitable for the big reservoirs are in Nepal, Bhutan and in the North-East—and each one has made clear their opposition to big storage reservoirs. If the water cannot be stored in big reservoirs during the monsoon, which is when some rivers are flooded, then the other option is to transfer the water to deficit basins during this time. But when the Brahmaputra is in floods, so is the Ganga and all the rivers through which the water needs to be transferred, including the Subarnarekha, the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the Krishna, the Pennar, and so on. Why should these rivers, that are already facing floods, receive more water? There is no doubt that if we can store water during the monsoon, we can make it available in the post monsoon months. But the water resources establishment sees big dams as the only storage option. Yet, the biggest, cheapest, most benign, possibly fastest and most decentralized storage option for India is the groundwater aquifer.

Which of the following statements is truein the context of the passage?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Interlinking of rivers is a very expensive proposal. It has huge adverse environmental impacts on land, forests, biodiversity, rivers and the livelihood of millions of people. It is a socially disruptive proposition. It will not only add to climate change impact (destruction of forests means destruction of carbon sinks, and reservoirs in tropical climate are known sources of methane and carbon dioxide), but will also reduce our capacity to adapt to climate change. Take, for example, the Ken-Betwa link which is the government’s top priority. The link will facilitate export of water from drought-prone Bundelkhand to the upper Betwa basin, as the detailed project report (DPR) makes clear. The Ken-Betwa link’s hydrology is effectively a state secret, so there is no way to check if the claim of Ken river being surplus is valid. There has been no credible environmental impact assessment of the link and no public hearings in canal and downstream affected areas. The link’s environmental management plan is still being prepared. The Ken-Betwa link threatens about 200 sq. km of the Panna tiger reserve, and with it the Ken river and large parts of Bundelkhand. Yet, it does not have an environment clearance, a final forest clearance. In fact, both forest and wildlife clearance recommendations are under the condition that the power project will be taken out of the forest/protected area, but the environment clearance recommendation assumes the project will be inside the forest/protected area. So, even that is invalid. The government justifies the Ken-Betwa link, and indeed the river interlinking project as a whole, by saying that it will provide irrigation, water supply, hydropower and flood control. But we need to understand that most of India’s water benefits, including irrigation, come from groundwater. In fact, in the past two-and-a-half decades, the net national irrigated area from big dams has decreased by about 1.5 million hectares from a peak of 17.79 million ha in 1991-92, according to government data. But in the same period, India’s total irrigated area has gone up—primarily due to groundwater. Groundwater is our water lifeline and whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not, groundwater is going to remain our water lifeline for decades to come. However, our current use of groundwater is not sustainable. The focus of our water resources development should be on how the groundwater lifeline can be sustained. Will Interlinking of rivers help in this? No, since Interlinking of rivers entails a large number of dams that will lead to destruction of rivers, forests, wetlands and local water bodies, which are major ground water recharge mechanisms. As far as hydropower is concerned, it is clear that large hydropower projects are no longer a viable option in India. The power minister has repeatedly said in Parliament over the last two years that hydropower projects of over 11,000MW are stuck due to lack of finances and questions over viability. The chief minister of Himachal Pradesh has stated that private developers are exiting the sector as they consider the projects to be non-viable. The situation in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is similar. It costs over Rs10 crore to produce one megawatt of hydropower, which in turn produces less than four million units of electricity. This means the per unit cost of power from such projects is in excess of Rs8 per unit, when there are no takers for power that costs even Rs3 per unit. In any case, Interlinking of rivers will be needing more power to lift the water than what it is likely to produce. The other problem with the river interlinking project is that of storing large quantities of waters. Most of the sites suitable for the big reservoirs are in Nepal, Bhutan and in the North-East—and each one has made clear their opposition to big storage reservoirs. If the water cannot be stored in big reservoirs during the monsoon, which is when some rivers are flooded, then the other option is to transfer the water to deficit basins during this time. But when the Brahmaputra is in floods, so is the Ganga and all the rivers through which the water needs to be transferred, including the Subarnarekha, the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the Krishna, the Pennar, and so on. Why should these rivers, that are already facing floods, receive more water? There is no doubt that if we can store water during the monsoon, we can make it available in the post monsoon months. But the water resources establishment sees big dams as the only storage option. Yet, the biggest, cheapest, most benign, possibly fastest and most decentralized storage option for India is the groundwater aquifer.

The author is talking about interlinking of which water bodies?