List of top English Language Comprehension Questions

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With will and vision, India's energy prospects can be changed from grim to green, and the world will benefit as a result, At 571 kWh per capita, India's electricity consumption is one-fifth of China's (2,631 kWh) and less than one - twentieth of the USA's (12,914 kWh). India's electricity demand will only grow. Solar electricity today at Rs.7.50 a kWh is economical compared with subsidised diesel generated power at roughly Rs.15 a unit, but more expensive than coal - based electricity at about Rs.6 And, in any case, India has ash - rich coal. What is the true cost of coal - based power? Prices are distorted by subsidies, State boundaries, vote - bank politics, and uncharged carbon - emission costs. Can India leapfrog into a clean - energy future rather than extend the conventional grid with fossil fuels at its core? In a nation blessed with abundant sunlight, to what extent should electricity be a networking service at all? Could India tap ambient solar energy for most of its needs? India's single - minded focus should be massive and rapid solar deployment, not only through utility - scale solar plants, but also through distributed generation, household - by - household, nationwide. Electricity in Indian homes should be roof top - to - room and solar based with energy self - sufficiency as the goal; the grid can complement and serve as back - up where available. Anchored with solar, the solutions may include combinations with bio - diesel, batteries, wind, biogas, micro - hydro, etc. At night or when the sun is behind clouds, alternative yet local sources can assure electricity. Once solar energy takes root, India will need less of the colossal and wasteful transmission, distribution and generation infrastructure except for industrial operations such as running factories and trains.

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The change in the Government's focus, from coveting the cash balances of public sector undertaking (PSUs) to examining how these can be put to better use by them, is a welcome development. In the current investment - starved environment, there is certainly a strong macro - economic imperative for inducing PSUs to deploy funds in capex programmes. But, from a shareholder's perspective- and that applies to the Government as well - it is also important that funds in excess of their immediate investment needs, estimated at over Rs. 1 lakh crore, earn a reasonable return. This is made difficult by rigid and archaic investment norms. So, it is a double whammy, wherein idle money of state - owned firms neither gets invested in projects nor generates sufficient portfolio returns. The current guidelines on deployment of surplus cash by PSUs decree that 60 percent of these should be parked with public sector banks. The 'public sector' mutual funds requirement is outdated, when many of them promoted by the likes of UTI, SBI and LIC have roped in foreign partners, making these ventures little different from pure private sector fund houses. Now that the investment guidelines are to be reviewed by a Government committee, it may be best for the Government to just stipulate general prudential norms to be followed by PSUs. These norms could emphasise safety liquidity of investments, their diversification across asset classes and securities, and provisions against taking speculative bets, that expose shareholder funds to capital loss risks.

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The first requirement to ensure nuclear safety is technical expertise which India has. No questions have been raised so far about the expertise in Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The first reactors were imported. Soon after commissioning the original suppliers left leaving us to fend for ourselves. The reactors have been running for decades without any serious environmental issues. More reactors have since been built indigenously with enhanced safety features, and increased power rating. Continuous monitoring of these shows negligible environmental impact compared to that arising from natural background radiation. All of this as possible because of the expertise available in DAE institutions. In the early years, there was self-regulation of safety. It had to be so because there was no other group working in this field. It worked very well. As the programme expanded, a full-time regulatory body was needed and, so, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) came into being. Continuing absence of education and research a nuclear technology in academic institutions meant the AERB had to be staffed with experts transferred to it from DAE units. AERB also had to rely on expertise in DAE for various kinds of analyses. This was facilitated by the AERB being under the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Information that ought to have been disseminated in the first place was not available to the public. This has naturally tended to imputed motives on attitude of AERB and DAE to safety. An independent regulator is being demanded as the answer. Steps have to be initiated in the direction now. Meanwhile, reliance on expertise in DAE institutions is inevitable. If total independence now is impractical and expertise outside DAE is unavailable, only total transparency on the part of AERB and DAE can redeem the situation. This had not yet come about. If a larger contribution from nuclear energy is required, more effort is needed to effectively answer public questions on plant safety and to dispel needless fear of radiation. A brand new independent agency to be set up now to regulate nuclear safety may please some people, but would find it difficult to cope with the demands of an expanding programme with new designs.

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Apprehensive that pharma companies may stop or reduce production of essential drugs after they come under price control, the Government is mulling steps to ensure that companies maintain present levels of output of these critical drugs. Sources said the recent decision to put a price cap 348 drugs was accompanied by a concern that the manufactures could lose interest in these medicines owing to reduced margins of profit. It was based on the past experience when the drug price control was first enacted. The Group of Ministers (GoM) that took the landmark decision directed the Department of Pharmaceutical to ensure that present production levels were maintained after the price control. As a follow-up, sources said, the Government could fix mandatory level of production in these drugs for each company in business. The fear over companies retaliating with decrease production revolves around the fact the price control would check profit margins. Once the essential medicines are brought under the Drug Price Control Order, they cannot be sold at a price highter than that fixed by the Government. A senior official said, "We will ensure that accessibility and availability of essential drugs does not go down". The GoM has also decided that the prices of medicines, which are part of the price control order of 1995 but not in the National List of Essential Medicines 2011, would be frozen for a year and thereafter a maximum increase of 10% per annum would be permitted. Out of the 348 medicines, the prices of 37 drugs are controlled by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). The Government, through the NPPA, controls prices of 74 bulk drugs and their formulations.

Identify the error from below mentioned sentences
When

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High fidelity, a successful book and film,

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Even

Each of these has a sentence given in four different forms. Choose the most appropriate form of writing.

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Through Paticia's resume was

Select the word that is appositer in meaning to the word in capital letters SCRIMP

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Although farmers complained that the company's new product was expensive, malodorous, and ...

Select the word that is appositer in meaning to the word in capital letters DELECTABLE

Select the word that is appositer in meaning to the word in capital letters GRAVE

Select the word that is appositer in meaning to the word in capital letters CONFIDANT

Select the word that is appositer in meaning to the word in capital letters AMALGAMATE

Identify the error from below mentioned sentences
Opponents of the Art

Select the word that is appositer in meaning to the word in capital letters Boisterous

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In a convention hall filled with auto executives who wish they could wake up to find the 2009 was just a bad dream, David Zuchowski and his colleagues at Hyundai were doing low-key victory laps. But while they plan in 2010 to pick up where they left off, they also tempered expectations that the US sales gains achieved by the Korean automaker can be repeated. "We will not have the same margin of difference that we did last year", David Zuchowski said at the Detroit auto show. "Our sales were up 8 percent in a market that was down 21 percent. There are a lot of things that happened with our competition, with our marketing, that really put us in a different area. We think for sure that we're going to grow our volume this year and we're going to grow our market share," he added. "If nothing else changes, and we held our 4.2 percent market share into 2010, we think that in itself accounts for 45,000 units of additional volume. And we think we're going to grow our share on top of that because we have some really terrific new products.
"John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai's American, sales operations, said the first goal is to hold onto the market share gains of 2009. Last year, Hyundai's US sales rose 8.3 percent to 435,064 units. Its share of the market jumped to 4.2 percent from 3 percent in 2008. Hyundai expects US sales this year to hit 11.4 million, may be even 11.5 million units. US sales fell 21.2 percent last year to 10.4 million units. As US automakers in early 2009 were concerned about there oun survival "Hyundai Assurance" was introduced as a safety net for consumers afraid of losing their jobs. Just shy of 100 customers returned cars under a programme allowing buyers to walk away from loans without a negative mark on credit reports if they lost their jobs. The programme has been extended through 2010.
"It elevated our brand," Zuchowski said of the Hyundai Assurance programme. "People who never used to consider us now are." Car salesmen watch this "consideration rate," which is as it sounds-whether a consumer will consider a brand when making a purchase decision.

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The latest CSO data on economic growth in the States has thrown up a number of interesting trends, none perhaps more interesting than the catch-up trend shown by what were conventionally viewed as backward States-Bihar's 11% growth has already received much attention. A disaggregated look at the growth figures reveals an even more interesting fact-the huge role played by services in propelling growth in backward States. Bihar's 11% average growth figure between FY05 and FY09 (up from 6% between FY01 and FY05) hidest the massive 38.13% growth in construction (up from 14% between. FY01 and FY05), 17.34% growth in communication (up from 10% between FY01 and FY05), 17.33% in restaurants and hotels (up from 13% between FY01 and FY 05) all major services sectors, in the same period. The boom in construction, telephones (particularly mobiles) and hospitality in mirrored in other previously slow growing states, including Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. What is even more important than the growth numbers themselves is the large number of jobs (particularly low skill and semi-skilled) that have been generated in the services sector industry. At a time when inclusive growth is the focus of government policy, such employment generating growth must be satisfying.
Impressive though the numbers are, it is easy to get carried a way by them. The fact of the matter is that services can only create a certain number of jobs and certainly not enough over a sustained period of time to absorb the entire workforce. Construction, for example, may eventually be limited by weak demand. The growth in communications was very impressive in these last five years because of the mobile boom, but that might plateau. Significantly, the numbers on agriculture growth remain very low and a significant proportion of India s population still depends on agriculture. Not all the excess labour from agriculture-which needs to move out to lift productivity-will be absorbed by services. So, industry/ manufacturing will still be the key to ensuring the kind of inclusive growth we need to boost backward States and to lift people out of poverty. But manufacturing needs radical policy attention in a way that services do not, to register rapid growth. The government, at the Centre and in States, needs to focus on labour laws, land acquisition and infrastructure. The strong growth in services, while welcome, should not become a reason to do nothing about promoting manufacturing and reforming agriculture. Healthy growth in those two sectors is needed to generate the demand that will eventually sustain services on a high growth path.

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Having investigated the nature of the relationship between price and trading volume for 50 Indian stocks, our findings indicate evidence of positive contemporaneous correlation between price changes and trading volume in Indian stock markets. All the stocks, except Reliance Power, show asymmetric behaviour, which is in line with the research findings. Investigation of dynamic relationship between returns and trading volume shows very interesting results. We find evidence that in the Indian market, past returns cause trading volume, which can be easily conceived in an emerging market where the state of development of the in market possibly does not allow instantaneous information dissemination. These results are further supported by the variance decomposition. However, in most cases the relationship lacks economic significance even though it is statistically significant. The results of impulse response analysis indicate that both returns and volume are mostly affected by their own lag and that volume is more auto regressive than returns, that is any shock in either returns or volume does not affect the return series beyond one lag. In case of unconditional volatility and trading volume, we find a positive contemporaneous relationship between trading volume and unconditional volatility.

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What can the leader of a democratic country do when one quarter of its population presents a petition opposing repayment of foreign debt and backs it up with a mass protest outside his residence, with red torches firing up the snowy landscape? To stave off revolt and breakdown of order, the head of State has two options; repudiate the debt altogether to resore public faith in the government or buy time by resorting to constitutional technicalities.
Iceland's President, Olafur Grimsson, faced this dour choice on New Year's Eve in Reykjavik and picked the latter course because of tremendous parallel pressure from creditors like the UK and the Netherlands and capital markets. Instead of immediately signing the bill that would have repaid London and Amsterdam $5 billion or remouncing all liability, he announced a national referendum for a clear national verdict. The country's finance minister has expressed confidence that public opinion can be moulded fast in the run-up to the referendum, by appealing to the average Icelander 's identity of being "honest hard-working = people" who honour debts.
The two creditor nations, which are furious at the delays and setbacks to repayment, should be hopping for such an outcome because they themselves are cash-strapped and hurting from the aftermath of the financial crisis. The saga of Iceland's fall from the glorious perch of the Nordic Tiger into a supplicant that defaults on its debts is emblematic of the ripple effect of the financial collapse of late 2008. One of the first economies to fall into the red immediately after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, Iceland has risen since the mid-nineties on wave of excessive leverage facilitated by State deregulation. All three of its big banks- Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki-collapsed like dominoes in a single week of mayhem in October 2008.

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Buoyed by strong demand from automobile, infrastructure, consumer durables, and capital goods industries, the price of steel and profitability of steel firms are firming up. In addition to private demand, the government's stimulus packages have also helped. Analysts expect the margins of steel companies to expand by 500 basis points in the quarter ending December last year, because of the rally in the base metal prices. Crude steel production in the quarter ended December last year grew $2.6\%$ and prices increased by $2\%$ in the same period. Broadly, during April- December 2009, steel consumption grew by 8% and growth gathered momentum during the last three months partly due to the low base effect of the previous year. In fact, Indian steel- makers had reduced production by up to $40\%$ in October- December 2008, as demand dropped significantly due to the slowdown and credit crunch. Even though fears of oversupply kept steel prices under pressure in the domestic market globally, too, companies had reduced the price of the metal-strong demand is now pulling up prices. Long product prices increased by nearly Rs 4,000 per tonne in the second half of December and analysts expect prices to rise by another Rs 1,000 per tonne this month. Even on the bourses, Tata Steel, JSW Steel. Sterlite and SAIL have outperformed the broader markets with gains of around $55\%$ in the quarter ended December and the BSE Metal Index too outperformed the Sensex. Despite the global slowdown, demand for steel in the domestic market remained strong due to the quick recovery in the automobile industry and government spending on infrastructure projects. In fact, a recent note from Nomura Research says that steel companies in India have enjoyed high operating rates resulting in robust performances. Even globally, the World Steel Organisation says that the slump in steel demand has bottomed out and is expected to grow by $9\%$ this year as demand rebounds in the US, Europe and Japan. The organisation expects steel prices to increase by $10\%$ in the next three months and inventory build-up will take place in anticipation of an increase in raw material costs.