Situation: Gender-based violence is on the rise. <br>Argument I: Programmes on OTT platforms increasingly depict gender-based violence. <br>Argument II: There is increased reporting on gender-based violence.

Umberto Eco, an Italian writer, was right when he said the language of Europe is transla tion. Netflix and other deep-pocketed global firms speak it well. Just as the EU employs a small army of translators and interpreters to turn intricate laws or impassioned speeches of Romanian MEPs into the EU’s 24 official languages, so do the likes of Netflix. It now offers dubbing in 34 languages and subtitling in a few more. The economics of European productions are more appealing, too. American audiences are more willing than before to give dubbed or subtitled viewing a chance. This means shows such as ”Lupin”, a French crime caper on Netflix, can become global hits. In 2015, about 75percent of Net flix’s original content was American; now the figure is half, according to Ampere, a media analysis company. Netflix has about 100 productions under way in Europe, which is more than big public broadcasters in France or Germany. Not everything works across borders. Comedy sometimes struggles. Whodunits and bloodthirsty maelstroms between arch Ro mans and uppity tribesmen have a more universal appeal. Some do it better than others. Barbarians aside, German television is not always built for export, says one executive, being polite. A bigger problem is that national broadcasters still dominate. Streaming services, such as Netflix or Disney+, account for about a third of all viewing hours, even in markets where they are well-established. Europe is an ageing continent. The generation of teens staring at phones is outnumbered by their elders who prefer to gawp at the box. In Brussels and national capitals, the prospect of Netflix as a cultural hegemon is seen as a threat. ”Cultural sovereignty” is the watchword of European executives worried that the Americans will eat their lunch. To be fair, Netflix content sometimes seems stuck in an uncanny valley somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, with local quirks stripped out. Netflix originals tend to have fewer specific cultural references than shows produced by domestic rivals, according to Enders, a market analyst. The company used to have an imperial model of commissioning, with executives in Los Angeles cooking up ideas French people might like. Now Netflix has offices across Europe. But ultimately the big decisions rest with American executives. This makes European politicians nervous. They should not be. An irony of European integration is that it is often American companies that facilitate it. Google Translate makes European newspapers comprehensible, even if a little clunky, for the continent’s non-polyglots. American social-media companies make it easier for Europeans to talk politics across borders. (That they do not always like to hear what they say about each other is another matter.) Now Netflix and friends pump the same content into homes across a continent, making culture a cross-border endeavour, too. If Europeans are to share a currency, bail each other out in times of financial need and share vaccines in a pandemic, then they need to have something in common—even if it is just bingeing on the same series. Watching fictitious northern and southern Europeans tear each other apart 2,000 years ago beats doing so in reality

AILET IP-JOINT MASTERS - 2025
Reading Comprehension

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The hum of humanity around was increasing. His awareness of his surrounding was gradually lessening in a sort of inverse proportion. He was not aware of it, but the world was beginning to press around. The pen of the wandering journalist had done the trick. Its repercussions were far and wide. The railways were the first to feel the pressure. They had to run special trains for the crows that were going to Malgudi. People travelled on footboards and on the roofs of coaches. The Malgudi station was choked with passengers. Outside, the station buses stood, the conductors crying,’Special for Malgudi leaving. Hurry up, Hurry up.‘ People rushed up from the station into the buses and almost sat on top of one another.

AILET IP-JOINT MASTERS - 2025
Logical Reasoning

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Intellectual humility was rarely discussed between 1800 and the early 2000s, but in the early 2010s, the number of mentions the trait received began to grow exponentially. Enthusiasm for intellectual humility, then, looks to be bound up with a specific set of epistemological anxieties related to information management in the age of the internet and social media. (Facebook was founded in 2004.) And, indeed, intellectual humility is often said to guard against precisely those pathologies that social media can incubate. When citizens are intellectually humble,‘ write the philosophers Michael Hannon and Ian James Kidd, ’they are less polarised, more tolerant and respectful of others, and display greater empathy for political opponents.‘ The intellectually humble, writes the psychologist Mark Leary, ’think more deeply about information that contradicts their views‘, and ’scrutinise the validity of the information they encounter‘.