ADURO 002

PLEASE FILL UP ANSWERS HERE - FORM 

Q A

Word Bank: amassed, glimmer of hope, oscillate, utter

Only when you are an observer of Pakistani politics and policies can you _______2__________ from _________1________ despair to regaining some of your optimism and back again within the space of a week. Yes, the attack on a Shia mosq­ue in Peshawar by terrorists has pushed into background a faint _________3________ that was evidenc­ed earlier in the week and even as the seven-day period was drawing to a close. Pakistan's relations with Af­gha­ni­stan, with the election to office of President Ashraf Ghani, a clean, clear-cut man of merit to replace the master of double-speak Hamid Karzai whose family reportedly __________4_______ a fortune during his decade-plus in power, have been like a breath of fresh air.

Q B

Word Bank: gratuitously, photogenic, poached, rejoicing.

While India is still _____4____________, rather __________6_______, over the much-touted increase in the country's tiger population, another animal - as important as the tiger in the list of endangered species, if not as _______7__________ - is facing extinction. Hardly a day goes by when newspapers are not carrying reports of yet another rhino being killed in Assam, chiefly in its Kaziranga National Park. And now a study conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature has warned that the rhino population in Assam's Manas National Park is on the verge of extinction too. Chillingly, the report fixes a time in the near future - the next 20 to 30 years - within which rhinos would disappear from Manas if effective steps are not taken in the meantime to stabilize the numbers and prevent poaching. Eight rhinos have been ______8___________ in Manas since 2011 - if the rate of killing stays constant in the coming years, soon there will be no rhinos left in the park.

Q C

Word Bank: augury, brokered, ceasefire, cessation, escalation

Doubts over the durability of peace in Ukraine despite the _________9________ that formally came into effect on Sunday, represent a dangerous __________10_______ in the months-long, bloody and bitter conflict between government and separatist rebel forces. Prospects of any swift  __________11_____ of hostilities were thrown into jeopardy after differences surfaced even as the deal was being drawn up, with some players advocating an immediate suspension of violence and others insisting upon some preparatory delay. During the run-up to Sunday, the objective of the opposing forces seems to have been to consolidate their respective positions. The sea coast near Mariupol and the city of Debaltseve, which are in Ukrainian control, are said to be critical for the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Thus, uncertainty seems to have been written into the accord _________12________ last week by the leaders of France and Germany with their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts. The current developments remind you of how the September 2014 ceasefire fell apart almost as soon as it was agreed upon, leading to a further ___________13______  in the crisis that has now claimed more than 5,000 lives and led to the displacement of a million people.

Q D

Word Bank: dichotomous, dispels, extolled, germination, panacea.

The Upanishads say that the ignorant go to a world of darkness, but the learned go into a world that is even darker. But isn't knowledge a lamp that ___________14______ the darkness of ignorance? How can knowledge that banishes ignorance, _______15__________ as the ________16_________ for all ills and evils, lead one to a world that is darker than the ignorance itself ?

Bookish learning does not always banish ignorance. The process of acquiring knowledge that illuminates a person inside and lets him become aware of the external reality, begins with sense data. This data, when contextualised, transforms into information that again turns into knowledge when we know how to apply it. But knowledge is bipolar; depending on the context, sometimes one aspect of the knowledge is right and sometimes the other. There is no knowledge that is not _______17__________. Experience and knowledge during application lead to the _____18____________ of discerning wisdom.