1) Read the following passage carefully and answer all the problems:

Frail man who won India her freedom preached non-violence. To Gandhiji however, non-violence, or ahimsa, was the way of life. He wore ‘ahimsa’ leather sandals and promoted ‘ahimsa’ silk; former made from the hide of cows which had died a natural death. He also hoped that Indian silk industry will use only those cocoons whose worms had already matured into moths and flown out into the world, not boiled to death for the sake of the rich yarn known all over the world as a symbol of India.

Twelve years ago, APCO (Andhra Pradesh Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society) in Hyderabad first realized value of ahimsa silk when its best silk had to be rushed to a high profile visitor. Mrs. Janaki Venkatraman, wife of the then President of India, Mr. R.Venkatraman, wanted to buy beautiful silk but will do so only on one condition- the silk must have been woven without killing silkworm before it turned into a moth.

Stumped by request, APCO manager, the non-technical person, rushed to his technical assistant, Mr. Kusuma Rajaiah, who confirmed that process of procuring the silk is a violent one. In fact, one silk saree can mean up to 50,000 silkworms. Irony is that very cocoon, created by nature to safeguard growing insect, is made up of fine silk thread that could be spun into lustrous silk yarn. Just seven days before maturity, the cocoons are collected, put into heat chambers, and treated at 70° C-90° C for three to four hours, hence killing insect and making the cocoon pliable for spinning.

As generally seen with alternative methods that are eco-friendly and which need new technology or way of thinking, costs are high. It is easy to produce the single saree but mass production needs bulk procurement of special cocoons.

Ahimsa silk is costlier than ordinary silk, only because when moth leaves home it punctures cocoon and this breaks silk thread. During spinning process, cocoons without moth lead to lot of wastage. From the ordinary cocoon, 80% of the thread could be procured as yarn, but from the empty one, this goes down to the abysmal 16%. The finished saree reflects this cost and is one and half times costlier than regular silk saree. Hence, to make it accessible to ordinary customer on street, there is a requirement to work on not just bringing cost down, but also on spreading awareness about good deed s/he does by buying such saree.

i) He wore ‘ahimsa’ leather sandals and promoted ‘ahimsa’ silk. What do you understand by ‘ahimsa’ here?               
ii) Briefly describe how is silk usually made?                             
iii) How is Ahimsa silk different?                   
iv) Why is Ahimsa more expensive than ordinary silk?       

2) Read following passage, it contains about 350 words. Then, use your own words, prepare the summary of it in not more than 120 words. At last, provide the suitable title for the summary.

Generally people believe that children are world’s most precious resource and must be loved and cherished. Though, since they are dependent on adults for safety and nurturing, and could neither look after themselves nor fight for their rights, they are regularly treated badly and abused. Report published by World Health Organization (WHO) in 1999 stated that more than 40 million children around the world suffer from abuse and maltreatment.

But things are beginning to modify. Did you know that United Nations has special Convention on Rights of Child and that Article 19 and Article 34 of this Convention deal specially with child abuse?

Child abuse has been defined as ‘all forms of physical, and/or emotional treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual and potential harm to child’s right to health, survival, development or dignity in context of the relationship of responsibility, trust or power’. It is being increasingly recognized that still children deserve to be treated with dignity and that their freedom must be respected. From year 2000, 20 November is celebrated as International Day for the Rights of the Child and 19 November is World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse.

As India is a poor country and we could barely guarantee our children basic health, nutrition and shelter, there is little time and opportunity to think about rights of children or of their abuse. Also because of our tradition of giving unprobleming respect to elders, convention of not letting outsiders know of problems within the family and viewing children as a property of parents, a great deal of child abuse is tolerated in our society. People are neither willing to talk about it nor report it to police or other authorities. Awareness is the only efficient response to silence and denial, talking about this issue and making as many people as possible aware of it is the only way to deal with this violation of children’s rights.

3) Fill in the blanks with a, an, or the. First one is done for you.

I instantly went round to Boma to make …………..complaint about……….way I had been treated. There was……….young district Officer there whom I knew well. He took me into his office.  He listened with sympathy to my story and began thumping……………table in his indignation.  He said, ‘Look here, Kenneth, if ever you wish anything just come along to me and I would give you………..note.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘that is not……….point, what about all thousands of others who want to be treated like reasonable human beings in………….shops? Have they got to come to you every time for……….note?’ He promised to prepare………….letter to…………….chemist and I let the matter drop.

4) prepare an essay in about 250 words on the topics given below:

i) Use of technology in our homes.

ii) Letter writing is now a dying art.

iii) Next war is going to be fought on a issue of water.

iv) ‘Each one teach one’ is the only way to educate every Indian.