Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

If you’re concerned that automation and artificial intelligence are going to disrupt the economy over the next decade, join the club. But while policymakers and academics agree there’ll be significant disruption, they differ about its impact.

On one hand, techno-pessimists argue that new forms of automation will displace most jobs without creating new ones. In other words, most of us will lose our jobs. On the flip side of the debate, techno-optimists contend that continued investments in education and research and development will offset the job losses and generate many new human tasks that complement AI.

Researchers have been studying jobs that involve digital skills for years to try to understand their merit. But what does it really mean for a job or skill to be “digital”?

In earlier research, all it meant was that a worker used a computer. Since nearly all workers use a PC today, we need a more refined definition of digital skills that takes into account how much a job depends on doing things like programming, crunching data in Excel spreadsheets and even using a smartphone.

In a particular research, a new way was created to measure digital or information technology skills in the labour market based on how frequently they’re used in an occupation. For example, how much time does a financial adviser spend analyzing data or an event planner use a computer?

It was found that workers in occupations that rank higher in IT industry earn more than demographically similar peers in other occupations – and that this earnings gap has been growing. Not only that, but it was also found something interesting on the impact of a college degree on the lifetime earnings of a person in IT industry. Historically, workers with a college degree have earned a lot more than peers without one. Even the level of the college makes a difference. Recent research has shown that this so-called college premium has been flattening. The main cause, according to the analysis, is that the college premium for occupations requiring fewer digital skills has been declining, while it has been rising for those we identified as digital jobs such as software developers, programmers and aerospace engineering. At least some of the flattening in the college premium is due to the increasing number of bachelor’s degrees that convey few skills that are valued in the marketplace.

Another research compares the measures of job quality – such as a sense of purpose, enjoyability and career advancement – with income, occupations and a range of demographic characteristics. It found that jobs that require greater interaction with technology tended to score higher in quality, particularly in terms of measures like career advancement.

The fact that these jobs not only pay more but also provide greater levels of employee satisfaction and engagement paints a more optimistic picture about the future of work. And that gives hope, particularly since the digital economy is growing at a pace nearly four times faster than the broader economy.

The key is making tomorrow’s jobs “robot-proof” by designing them in a way that takes advantage of the digital skills described above. And universities must play a big role in this by identifying what a good job looks like and ensuring future generations learn the necessary skills.

Which of the following is TRUE with respect to the context of the passage?

I. In terms of quality, jobs that involve a greater interaction with technology, tend to score higher than ones that require lesser interaction.
II. The rate at which digital economy is sluggish when compared with the rate at which the broader economy is growing.
III. Even with continued investments in education and research it will not be possible to cover up the job losses which will happen due to increased use of automated technology.

Direction: 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.

The effects of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression are forcing changes on state governments and the U.S. economy that could linger for decades. By one Federal Reserve estimate, the country lost almost an entire year's worth of economic activity – nearly $14 trillion – during the recession from 2007 to 2009. The deep and persistent losses of the recession forced states to make broad cuts in spending and public workforces. For businesses, the recession led to changes in expansion plans and worker compensation. And for individual Americans, it has meant a future postponed, as fewer buy houses and start families. Five years after the financial crash, the country is still struggling to recover." In the aftermath of [previous] recessions there were strong recoveries. That is not true this time around," said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "This is more like the pace getting out of the Great Depression." For years, housing served as the backbone of economic growth and as an investment opportunity that propelled generations of Americans into the middle class.

But the financial crisis burst the housing bubble and devastated the real estate market, leaving millions facing foreclosure, millions more underwater, and generally stripping Americans of years' worth of accumulated wealth. Anthony B. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University, said even the nascent housing recovery can't escape the effects of the recession. Home values may have rebounded, he said, but the factors driving that recovery are very different than those that drove the growth in the market in the 1990s and 2000s. Sanders said more than half of recent home purchases have been made in cash, which signals investors and hedge funds are taking advantage of cheap properties. That could freeze out average buyers and also mean little real economic growth underpins those sales. Those effects are clear in homeownership rates, which continue to decline. In the second quarter of this year, the U.S. homeownership rate was 65.1%, according to Census Bureau data, the lowest since 1995. In the mid-2000s, it topped 69%, capping a steady pace of growth that began after the early 1990s recession. Reversing that will be a challenge, in part because credit has tightened and lending rules have been toughened in an effort to avoid the mistakes that inflated the housing bubble in the first place.

"Credit expanded, and now contracted, and it's going to be tight like this as far as the eye can see," Sanders said. "We so destroyed so many households when the bubble burst, there's just not the groundswell to fill the demand again." Some are skeptical that the tight credit market and new efforts to regulate the financial markets, like the Dodd-Frank law, will prove lasting. Americans have often responded with calls for regulation after financial sector-driven crises and accusations of mismanagement, according to Brookings' Burtless. "But eventually, those fires cool down," he said. "It's not as though this memory of what can go wrong sticks with us very long." That can be seen in the intense efforts to water down Dodd-Frank's regulations, Burtless said. Federal regulators have already made moves to relax requirements for some potential homeowners who were victims of the recent housing crisis. Even those steps and an unlikely return to easy credit might not fuel a full housing recovery without economic growth to back it up. As Sanders, referring to the growth in low-wage and part-time employment, put it: "At those wages, it's tough to scramble together down payments and mortgages’’.

 "Turmoil in the housing market has already reshaped the makeup of households nationwide. Homeownership rates among people with children under 18 fell sharply during the recession, declining 15% between 2005 and 2011, according to Census Bureau data. In some states it was far worse. For Michigan, the decline in homeownership was 23%, and in Arizona and California it was 22%. Lackluster job growth has outlived the downturn. A study by the Economic Policy Institute showed wages for all workers, when adjusted for inflation, grew just 1.5% between 2000 and 2007. But the last five years wiped out even those modest gains—the study found wages declined for the bottom 70% of all workers since the recession began. However, some areas have seen manufacturing jobs climb back from recessionary lows, and the energy sector has been a boon for some Midwestern states. One hopeful sign for workers is the shift away from manufacturing growth in the typically low-wage South back toward the Rust Belt states, reversing a movement that was taking hold before the downturn. That trend is documented in a 2012 report from the Brookings Institution, "Locating American Manufacturing: Trends in the Geography of Production.’’

"From 2000 to 2010, both the Midwest and South lost manufacturing jobs at about the national rate of 34%. But the Midwest has seen nearly half of all manufacturing jobs gained since 2010, almost double the increase in the South. For Michigan, the growth was 19%; in Indiana, 12%. Even with that growth, there are caveats. Autoworker unions have ceded ground with companies on wages and benefits, for example, allowing new hires to work for lower pay and fewer benefits than those who've held their jobs longer. Unemployment remains stubbornly high in some states, and the jobs created have leaned heavily toward part-time and low-pay work. A study from the San Francisco Federal Reserve found the proportion of U.S. jobs that are part-time is high, as many of the jobs lost during the recession have not returned.

How, according to the passage, plunge in the economy devastated the life of the Americans?

Comprehension: Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

Since September, at least 25 people have died and thousands have been made homeless. Every state and territory in Australia has experienced fires this summer. But the biggest fires burn along stretches of the eastern and southern coast, where most of the population lives. This includes areas around Sydney and Adelaide. More than 6.3 million hectares (63,000 sq km or 15.6 million acres) have been burned so far – one hectare is roughly the size of a sports field. To put that in perspective, around 800,000 hectares were engulfed in a bush fire in 2018 in California. Australia has always experienced bushfires – it has a "fire season". But this year they are a lot worse than normal.

Fires are usually caused by lightning strikes or accidentally by a spark – but some fires are also started deliberately. This year, a natural weather phenomenon known as the ‘Indian Ocean Dipole’ has meant a hot, dry spell across the country. This year, Australia twice set a new temperature record: an average maximum of 41.9°C was recorded on 18 December. That comes on top of a long period of drought.

Scientists have long warned that this hotter, drier climate will contribute to fires becoming more frequent and more intense. The more extreme weather patterns and higher temperatures increase the risk of bushfires and allow them to spread faster and wider. Fire fighters are spraying water and fire retardant from planes and helicopters as well as from the ground. But fighting bush fires is extremely difficult and often authorities have to focus on just stopping the spread, rather than putting the fire out. The spread can for instance be best contained by digging earth boundaries to stop the flames from spreading. The priority is saving lives.

Professional fire fighters are the first in line to battle the flames, but they are outnumbered by the thousands of volunteers. Three of them have died. There's also help coming from abroad: the US, Canada and New Zealand have sent fire fighters to help. Australia's police, military and navy are involved in rescue and evacuation efforts. While people can flee the fires and are being evacuated if need be, the flames are devastating wildlife in the affected areas. One study estimated that half a billion animals have died in New South Wales alone.

Zookeepers take animals home to save them from fire, but the fires don't only kill animals directly, they also destroy the habitat, leaving the survivors vulnerable even when the fires have gone. So the true scale of loss isn't yet clear. Experts say more than 100,000 cows and sheep may also have been lost, which is devastating for farmers.

Each state runs its own emergency operation, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison has promised better funding for fire-fighting and payouts for volunteer fire fighters, and an additional A$2billion ($1.4billion; £1billion) for the recovery. But the national government has come under strong criticism from its opponents that it has not been doing enough against climate change. The country is one of the world's biggest per capita greenhouse gas emitters but under international agreements it has committed itself to reduction targets

The opposition in Australia is criticising the government for:

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

The stark observation made in the Economic Survey of 2015-16 that “Indian agriculture, is in a way, a victim of its own past success – especially the green revolution”, shows the dark reality of the agriculture sector at present and the havoc that has been wreaked by the green revolution.

The green revolution, which is often characterised by the introduction of high-yielding variety of seeds and fertilisers, undoubtedly increased the productivity of land considerably. But the growth in the productivity has been stagnant in recent years, resulting in a significant decline in the income of farmers. There have also been negative environmental effects in the form of depleting water table, emission of greenhouse gases, and the contamination of surface and ground water. Needless to say, the agriculture sector is in a state of distress, which is severely affecting peasants and marginal farmers, and urgent policy interventions are required to protect their interests.

The government has responded to the problem by constituting a panel, which will recommend ways to double the income of farmers by 2022. While this may be an overtly ambitious target, if we want to boost stagnated agricultural growth a shift has to be made from food security of the nation to income security of the farmers. However, there are many hurdles that have to be crossed if we want to achieve this objective.

The first major barrier to overcome is declining productivity. Data from 2013 reveals that India’s average yield of cereal per hectare is far less than that of many countries (including several low income countries), but the difference is huge when compared to China. For instance, our average yield per hectare is 39% below than that of China and for rice this figure is 46%. Even Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia fare better than India in case of rice yield. Further, there is a huge inter-regional variation; the wheat and rice yield from Haryana and Punjab is much higher than from the other states.

In order to cross the declining productivity barrier there is a need to herald a rainbow revolution by making a shift from wheat-rice cycle to other cereals and pulses. Since wheat and rice coupled with other crops are backed by minimum support prices (MSP) and input subsidy (whether water, fertiliser or power) regime, there is a huge incentive for the farmers in the irrigated region of Northwest India to grow these crops.

What does the author suggest to enhance the income of the farmers?

Directions: Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by choosing the correct/most appropriate options.

AU Small Finance Bank Limited is an Indian Small Finance Bank, based in Jaipur, India. It was founded as vehicle finance company AU Financiers (India) Ltd. in 1996 and converted to a small finance bank on April 19, 2017.

AU Small Finance Bank serves low and middle-income individuals and micro and small businesses that have limited or no access to formal banking and finance channels. The Bank offers loans, deposits, and payment products and services. AU Small Finance Bank ranked 355 in the list of Fortune India 500 (2019) companies, with annual revenue of 3410.87 crore (US$427 million) and Total B/S Assets of 31198.68 crore (US$ 3.9 billion).

AU Bank enjoys a long-term credit rating of "AA-/Stable" from CRISIL Ratings, ICRA Ratings, India Ratings and CARE Ratings.

The company was founded by Sanjay Agarwal (Managing Director and CEO of AU Small Finance Bank) as a private limited company, and publicly listed in an IPO on June 29, 2017. A merit holder Chartered Accountant and a first-generation entrepreneur, he holds ~ 28.5% stake in the bank. He is supported by a team of 23486 employees.

AU Small Finance Bank is listed on NSE and BSE with a market capitalisation of ~ 37942 crore. On its first day of trading, the stock rose 51% to be the most expensive bank in India based on price-to-book. In November 2017, the Reserve Bank of India added the bank to its schedule of commercial banks, further improving the bank's growth prospects by reducing the cost of short-term funds and improving the bank's ability to provide services.

Over the years, the Bank has attracted marquee investors like IFC, Warburg Pincus, Temasek Holdings, Nomura, Kotak Mahindra MF, etc. Private equity companies that provided venture capital, including Warburg Pincus and International Finance Corporation, made partial exits for as much as nine times their original investment.

Due to its history as a vehicle finance company, as of March 2018 almost all the loans made by AU Small Finance Bank were secured, unlike most small finance banks that have unsecured loans due to their background in microfinance. This provides lower yields (lower interest rates) than unsecured loans, so the bank has been particularly active in growing its deposits, as bank deposits have a lower cost than other sources of funds. It has also sought to diversify into savings products like deposits, payment/transaction banking, distribution of third-party products, and additional loan products thereby positioning itself as a holistic financial products and services provider.

As on June 30, 2021, AU Small Finance Bank's distribution network............... 758 Banking Touchpoints and 23486 employees spread contiguously across 15 states and two Union Territories with over 2 million customers.

The bank has operations in 15 States and two Union Territories, with Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh being key states. It is one of the largest banks by a number of locations in its home state of Rajasthan.

Choose the most appropriate meaning of the given idiom from the passage. As of

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

Santiniketan embodies Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of a place of learning that is unfettered by religious and regional barriers. Established in 1863 with the aim of helping education go beyond the confines of the classroom, Santiniketan grew into the Visva Bharati University in 1921, attracting some of the most creative minds in the country.

He developed a curriculum that was a unique blend of art, human values and cultural interchange. Even today, in every step, in every brick and in every tree at Santiniketan, one can still feel his presence, his passion, his dedication and his pride in the institution. In 1862, Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath, was taking a boat ride through Birbhum, the westernmost corner of Bengal, when he came across a landscape that struck him as the perfect place for meditation. He bought the large tract of land and built a small house and planted some saplings around it. Debendranath Tagore decided to call the place Santiniketan, or the ‘abode of peace’, because of the serenity it brought to his soul. In 1863, he turned it into a spiritual centre where people from all religions, castes and creeds came and participated in meditation.

In the years that followed, Debendranath’s son Rabindranath went on to become one of the most formidable literary forces India has ever produced. He wrote in all literary genres but he was first and foremost a poet. As one of the earliest educators to think in terms of the global village, he envisioned an education that was deeply rooted in one’s immediate surroundings but connected to the cultures of the wider world.

Located in the heart of nature, the school aimed to combine education with a sense of obligation towards the larger civic community. Blending the best of western and traditional eastern systems of education, the curriculum revolved organically around nature with classes being held in the open air. Tagore wanted his students to feel free despite being in the formal learning environment of a school, because he himself had dropped out of school when he found himself unable to think and felt claustrophobic within the four walls of a classroom. Nature walks and excursions were a part of the curriculum, special attention was paid to natural phenomena and students were encouraged to follow the life cycles of insects, birds and plants.

The rural paradise of Santiniketan, Tagore’s erstwhile home, has become a thriving centre of art, education and internationalism over the years.

When did Santiniketan grow into a university?

Comprehension: Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

Since September, at least 25 people have died and thousands have been made homeless. Every state and territory in Australia has experienced fires this summer. But the biggest fires burn along stretches of the eastern and southern coast, where most of the population lives. This includes areas around Sydney and Adelaide. More than 6.3 million hectares (63,000 sq km or 15.6 million acres) have been burned so far – one hectare is roughly the size of a sports field. To put that in perspective, around 800,000 hectares were engulfed in a bush fire in 2018 in California. Australia has always experienced bushfires – it has a "fire season". But this year they are a lot worse than normal.

Fires are usually caused by lightning strikes or accidentally by a spark – but some fires are also started deliberately. This year, a natural weather phenomenon known as the ‘Indian Ocean Dipole’ has meant a hot, dry spell across the country. This year, Australia twice set a new temperature record: an average maximum of 41.9°C was recorded on 18 December. That comes on top of a long period of drought.

Scientists have long warned that this hotter, drier climate will contribute to fires becoming more frequent and more intense. The more extreme weather patterns and higher temperatures increase the risk of bushfires and allow them to spread faster and wider. Fire fighters are spraying water and fire retardant from planes and helicopters as well as from the ground. But fighting bush fires is extremely difficult and often authorities have to focus on just stopping the spread, rather than putting the fire out. The spread can for instance be best contained by digging earth boundaries to stop the flames from spreading. The priority is saving lives.

Professional fire fighters are the first in line to battle the flames, but they are outnumbered by the thousands of volunteers. Three of them have died. There's also help coming from abroad: the US, Canada and New Zealand have sent fire fighters to help. Australia's police, military and navy are involved in rescue and evacuation efforts. While people can flee the fires and are being evacuated if need be, the flames are devastating wildlife in the affected areas. One study estimated that half a billion animals have died in New South Wales alone.

Zookeepers take animals home to save them from fire, but the fires don't only kill animals directly, they also destroy the habitat, leaving the survivors vulnerable even when the fires have gone. So the true scale of loss isn't yet clear. Experts say more than 100,000 cows and sheep may also have been lost, which is devastating for farmers.

Each state runs its own emergency operation, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison has promised better funding for fire-fighting and payouts for volunteer fire fighters, and an additional A$2billion ($1.4billion; £1billion) for the recovery. But the national government has come under strong criticism from its opponents that it has not been doing enough against climate change. The country is one of the world's biggest per capita greenhouse gas emitters but under international agreements it has committed itself to reduction targets

Which of the following countries has NOT sent help for firefighting?

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

Santiniketan embodies Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of a place of learning that is unfettered by religious and regional barriers. Established in 1863 with the aim of helping education go beyond the confines of the classroom, Santiniketan grew into the Visva Bharati University in 1921, attracting some of the most creative minds in the country.

He developed a curriculum that was a unique blend of art, human values and cultural interchange. Even today, in every step, in every brick and in every tree at Santiniketan, one can still feel his presence, his passion, his dedication and his pride in the institution. In 1862, Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath, was taking a boat ride through Birbhum, the westernmost corner of Bengal, when he came across a landscape that struck him as the perfect place for meditation. He bought the large tract of land and built a small house and planted some saplings around it. Debendranath Tagore decided to call the place Santiniketan, or the ‘abode of peace’, because of the serenity it brought to his soul. In 1863, he turned it into a spiritual centre where people from all religions, castes and creeds came and participated in meditation.

In the years that followed, Debendranath’s son Rabindranath went on to become one of the most formidable literary forces India has ever produced. He wrote in all literary genres but he was first and foremost a poet. As one of the earliest educators to think in terms of the global village, he envisioned an education that was deeply rooted in one’s immediate surroundings but connected to the cultures of the wider world.

Located in the heart of nature, the school aimed to combine education with a sense of obligation towards the larger civic community. Blending the best of western and traditional eastern systems of education, the curriculum revolved organically around nature with classes being held in the open air. Tagore wanted his students to feel free despite being in the formal learning environment of a school, because he himself had dropped out of school when he found himself unable to think and felt claustrophobic within the four walls of a classroom. Nature walks and excursions were a part of the curriculum, special attention was paid to natural phenomena and students were encouraged to follow the life cycles of insects, birds and plants.

The rural paradise of Santiniketan, Tagore’s erstwhile home, has become a thriving centre of art, education and internationalism over the years.

Tagore’s ‘erstwhile’ home means: