Current Affairs SSC

PASSAGE ON FREE SPEECH   It is worth spelling out why free expression is the bed" rock of all liberties. Free speech is the best defense against bad government Politicians who err (that is, all of them) should be subjected to unfettered criticism. Those who hear it may respond to it; those who silence it may never find out how their policies misfired. As Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, has pointed out, no democracy with a free press ever endured famine. In all areas of life, free debate sorts good ideas from box ones. Science cannot develop unless old certainties are queried. Taboos are the enemy of understanding. When China's government orders economists to offer optimistic forecasts, it guarantees that its own policymaking will be ill informed,, When American social-science faculties hire only left-wing professors, their research deserves to be taken less seriously.. The law should recognize the right to free speech as nearly absolute. Exceptions should be rare. Child pornography should be banned, since its production involves harm to children. States need to keep some things secret: free speech does not mean the right to publish nuclear launch codes. But in most areas where campaigners are calling for enforced civility (or worse, deference) they should be resisted. Blasphemy laws are an anachronism. A religion should be open to debate. Laws against hate speech are unworkably sub jective and widely abused. Banning words or arguments which one group finds offensive does not lead to social harmony. On the contrary, it gives everyone an incentive to take of- fence—a fact that opportunistic politicians with ethnic-based support are quick to exploit.   Incitement to violence should be banned. However, it should be narrowly defined as instances when the speaker intends to goad those who agree with him to commit violence, and when his words are likely to have an immediate effect. Shouting "Let's kill the Jews" to an angry mob outside a synagogue qualifies. Drunkenly posting 'T wish all the Jews were dead" on an obscure Facebook page probably does not. Saying something offensive about a group whose members then start a riot certainly does not count. They should have responded with words, or by ignoring the fool who insulted them.   In volatile countries, such as Rwanda and Burundi, words that incite violence will differ from those that would do so in a stable democracy. But the principles remain the same. The police should deal with serious and imminent threats not arrest every bigot with a laptop or a megaphone. (The governments of Rwanda and Burundi, alas, show no such restraint.)   PRECIS-ECONOMIST   THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE SPEECH   Free speech is often called the keystone of all liberties, and this can be clearly justified. Free speech gives the citizen right to criticize without which the state may go dictatorial. But not everything, like the nuclear launch codes, can be more...

PASSAGE ON DANCING MONK   "The duty of the dancer is to involve the audience in his performance" starts Astad Deboo. From his graceful animation to his quick demonstrations, this dancing monk's passion for the art form is infectious. He is in the city, almost after a decade; to present his latest creation-Eternal Embrace-composed by Japanese musician Yukio Tsuji The 60-mi.nute solo will be performed on December 16 at The Collection, UB City. "My preparation for Eternal Embrace started last year when I was commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), New York, to create a piece for its Islamic Wing. I explained the essence of Bulleh Shah's Maati to Yukio and he created the music in my presence in accordance to my movements"   "This contemporary dance explores the tension, between the ephemeral and material worlds. It puts forth the cycle of life and the finality of death, it speaks or sorrow and. Grief. I intend to take the spectator on a journey of intense emotion through my movements”.   Speaking of his work with Yukio, he says, 'The music original. At the Met, initially, the audience was unsure of whether Japanese music could blend with Sufi element, but when they finally heard it, they understood how seamlessly it enhanced the dance. Music is central to the execution of dance"   "My work has never been in-your-face. There is always a subtle quality to it my form and style has an Indian influence because Kathakali was the base to my dancing, mudras are indispensable to my style. I like to keep experimenting and inculcating newer components into my performances"   He believes that though, dance is universal, each of its forms is diverse, and has its own audience. "I also like addressing relevant issues such as d rag addiction and environment conservation as themes on stage.'7' He has a,, word of advice to aspirins dancers;, "Ton need technique, a trained body and a vocabulary for dance. Each choreography has its own style, which can be showcased only through practice. There is always room for improvement you are only as good as your last performance." However, he hopes for better dance institutions in. India where they teach it for longer periods of time.   Speaking of his work as a choreographer in movies, he says, 'The choreography on stage is different from that on screen, but both are enriching in their own way."   He has also worked extensively with hearing-impaired artistes at the Clarke University, Chennai, and the Gaullaudet University, Washington. "All I did was teach them counting. Once they got the rhythm- they could move to the music, although they couldn't hear it themselves/'   His future project is an Indo-Korean venture, winch is to involve Indian and Korean drummers,   THE DANCING   WORDS - 123   Astad Deboo, the dancing monk was in. the city to perform his latest creations Eternal embrace, which more...

PASSAGE ON HARAPPAN MAN   What did the Harappan man look like? Was he well built? How tall was he? What were his facial features? Was the color of his skin eyes and hair? What were the dietary habits of the Harappan   The answers to these questions, winch have been puzzling archaeologists for several decades, he in the DNA test results of four skeletons excavated from Rakhigarhi a Harappan site in Haryana. The results are expected m July. The tests are Jointly conducted archaeologists of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institution of Sue and forensic scientists from Seoul National University, South Korea. Two of the Sectors belonging to the Mature Harappan period (2600-1900 BPE) are of adult males, one is of an adult female, and the fourth is of a child.   The growth and development of the Harappan civilization can be divided into Early Harappan 3000-2600 BCE mature Harappan (2600-1900 BCE) and Late Harappan (2600-1900 BCE) phases for the first time, we are going to show the world what the Harappan man looked like. It will be a breakthrough in Harappan studies," said Vasant Shinde, director of the excavation at Rakhigarhi and a specialist on Harappan civilization. He is the vice-Chancellor of Deccan College, a deemed university   "The excavation at Rakhigarhi. 25 kilometers from Jind town in Haryana's Hisar district is conducted Jointly by Deccan College and the Haryana Department of Archaeology. Twenty one trenchers, besides the four burials, were dug during the excavation which began on January 23 and ended in the third week of April   "We excavated the burials scientifically at Rakhigarhi. If you want to study the DNA you have to avoid contamination. So we took precautions. We wore suits, glove and masks all four skeletons were in good condition," said Shinde.   PRECIS   HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION   The physical and preference of the Harapan man can now be understood with the DNA testing of the four skeletons found m Rakhigarhi. Harappan civilization is divided into three phases early mature and late. The archaeologists from a Pune-based institute and forensic scientists from south korea-based university are working on this 21 trenches were found, and the experts are taking precaution to prevent contamination of the site.  

PASSAGE ON MALARIA ERADICATION   The global fight against malaria is in "urgent need" of more funding, said the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday while releasing the latest World Malaria Report.   According to the report, there were 212 million new cases of malaria and 4,29,000 deaths worldwide in 2015. Further, nearly 78% of Plasmodium vivax malaria cases in 2015 occurred in just four countries' Ethiopia, India. Indonesia and Pakistan.   Despite the billions of dollars spent on malaria programmers, the U.N. health agency said too many people are missing out on available resources like medicines and bed nets that protect against mosquitoes that spread the disease.   WHO had set a goal of cutting malaria cases to "near zero" by the end of last year. It fell far short, and now is aiming to reduce malaria cases and deaths by at least 90 per cent by 2030. "We're far from having completed the job," said Dr. Pedro Atonso, director of who's malaria department. "The hardest is yet to come.'' Dr Alonso added that the gains could be hurt by a lack of funding, which had stagnated in the last six years, in the report, WHO has also expressed concern about the quality of data: the report said surveillance systems catch fewer than 20 percent of cases. The vast majority cases are in Africa. About 70 percent of deaths are in children under the age of five. Chris Drakeley, director of the malaria centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that even the incremental drop in malaria cases was significant. He noted that new approaches to fighting malaria like giving out medicines to children during high season to prevent infections were proving effective. Other experts said WHO should rethink its priorities when it comes to malaria spending. "They're looking at innovative ideas and investing in new tools like vaccines but they're missing the basics," said Sophie Harman, a public health expert at Queen Mary University in London. Ms. Harman also questioned whether WHOs latest 2030 goal was realistic. "It has symbolic meaning that WHO is still committed to this," she said. "But probably nobody in public health thinks this is really achievable."   PRECIS   THE MALARIA SHOCK   The latest WHO report on malaria mentioned the dire need of funding, since large number of deaths has been reported worldwide with majority of it concentrated in the four countries of Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. The target to eradicate malaria by last year, failed in spite of millions of dollars in funds, and this has made them revise the target to a 90% reduction by 2030. The money did not find its way to the poor as many didn't get even basic amenities. The organization also blames it on poor monitoring since only 20% of the cases get reported. This target is also held to be unrealistic by experts, since the spending is mostly in more...

PASSAGE ON PAHAL   Pahal, the remarkable educational NGO that runs ASER, not only exposes the deficiencies of the educational system but also tries to fix them. We have been working with them for the last ten years, evaluating almost every new edition of their program for teaching children arithmetic and reading. Our association started in the year 2000 in western India, in the cities of Nagpur and Rewari, where Pahal was running what they called the Balsaheli (meaning "children's friend") program.   The program took the twenty children in each classroom that needed help and sent them to work with the Balsaheli, a young woman from the community, on their specific areas of weakness. Despite a drought and communal riots, the program generated very large gains in test scores for these children-"in Nagpur, about twice the magnitude of the average gains from private schooling that have been found in India. Yet these Balsaheli were much less educated than the average private (or public) school teacher-many of them had barely ten years of schooling, plus a week's training by Pahal.   Given these results, many organizations would have rested on their laurels.   Not Pahal. The idea of resting anywhere, least of all on their laurels, is entirely foreign to Ram's personality or that of Rashmi Baweja, the human dynamo who is the driving force behind Pahal spectacular expansion. One way in which Pahal could reach more children was by having communities take over the program. In the Baliya District in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state and one of the poorest, Pahal volunteers went from village to village testing children and encouraging the community to get involved in the testing to see for themselves what their children knew and didn't know. The parents were not thrilled by what they saw-their first instinct often was to try to smack their children-but eventually a set of volunteers from the community emerged, ready to take on the job of helping their little brothers and sisters. They were mostly young college students who held classes in the evening in their neighborhoods. Pahal gave them a week of training but no other compensation.   We evaluated this program as well, and the results were quite dramatic: By the end of the program, all the participating children who could not read before the program could at least recognize letters (in contrast, only 40 percent of those in the comparison villages could read letters by the end of the year). Those who could read only letters at the beginning were 26 percent more likely, by the end, to be able to read a short story if they had participated than if they had not.   PRECIS   THE BALSAHELI PROGRAMME   The author has been working in association with an NGO called Pahal that introduced a new programme called Balsaheli child's friend), which more...

PASSAGE ON MY LIBRARY   The key to create my life the way I want it-that's what library is to me. Right from the day when I was introduced into the world of books by my English teacher, the love of learning has always remained with me.   People with books have always fascinated me even from my childhood but I never felt like touching one for I was afraid that my linguistic skills were so poor that I won't be able to understand a word of it. The words of my English teacher who appreciated me after seeing my short essay made me rethink.   Classics used to inspire me when I was in my schooldays, though I must say that I couldn't understand those books then the way I understand it now. This makes me feel that one reads a book differently at different points of time, and interprets it according to his own mindset. When I entered college, I was more interested in thrillers, especially Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes. As I grew older, I read less of thrillers and more of philosophical books, since I am more concerned about deeper thoughts these days. Even though, I read few thrillers when I take break from serious reading, those can't be counted as my main interest.   The most-valuable thing that I have in my life now is the library I have created using the thousands of books I have collected throughout my life. These books made me the man I am, taking me from the kid who used to collect used books from rich people, to the head of the most prestigious publishing firm in the world.   The most important legacy that I pass on to my next generation would be my library and an advice to keep reading alive as long as you are.   PRECIS   THE LIBRARY   The author says that books are the things that changed his world, for better, leading him to become successful in life, to reach the position of the head of a famous publishing firm. His reading progressed through many stages along with his age, from classic to thrillers to philosophical books, which makes him think that people interpret books different way in different stages of life. He mentions that he was afraid to read a book at first and seeing his writing skills, it was his English teacher who introduced him to reading, and he wants to do the same for next generation, for whom he leaves his most important legacy, i.e. his library.

  Letter Writing   LETTER WRITING -INTRODUCTION   Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Sigmund Freud, Gertrude Stein, H.G. Wells, Mahatma Gandhi. Do you know what these people have in common? They were all ardent letter writers. If you go deep into history; you will be able to find that the persons who were called great minds of all times were also great letter writers. They shared their ideas with their contemporaries through letters, and even replied to their followers who kept those letters like treasures. Before the advent of social networking, people used to communicate with each other through letters. The ability to communicate instantly almost put an end to the art of letter writing. There are different kinds of letters, depending on the purpose for which one is writing the letter. They are:  

Informal

These are personal letters, or the letters one writes to a friend or a relative. In these type of letters, one can use conversational notes.  

Formal

These are letters written for certain fixed purposes, and addressed to people holding official positions. They can also be called Official letters or Business letters.   Official or Business Letters are addressed to newspapers, leaders, high officials, for business purposes and are often in the form of business enquiries or circulars. They may be addressed to superior or subordinate officers or customers. The art of letter writing requires patience and the ability to put your thoughts into words. This is when the letters are of a personal nature, and when written in an informal context. The sort of letters one has to write for a competitive exam has a fixed structure, and one has to adhere to this format.   GENERAL FORMAT FOR LETTER WRITING   There are four parts in every letter,  

Heading: This includes the writer's address and the date.

Salutation or Greeting: This depends on the letter type with personal letters taking an informal greeting and formal letters taking a business-like greeting.

Body of the letter: This part of the letter elaborates on the topic, forming the content part.

Closing: This should be written according to the type of letter, like the salutation, and should always be courteous in nature.

  Informal Letters - With love, With regards, Lovingly. Formal Letters - Yours faithfully, Yours truly, Thanking you.   PERSONAL LETTER       Sender’s address   Date   Greeting,           Main body         Complimentary close,   Name   BUSINESS/ OFFICE LETTER   Sender’s address   Date   Receiver’s address   Subject   Greeting,       Main body       Complimentary Close,   Name

                                                                                                          Personal Letter -1

WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR COLLEGEMATE CONGRATULATING HIM ON HIS SUCCESS IN CIVIL SERVICES EXAMINATION.

  18, Dr. Mukherjee nagar Delhi 27th June 2016 Dear Madhav,   I read about your success in the civil services examination, and felt extremely happy. I think you also must be exalted with the results, and so must be everyone related to you. Congratulations, my friend. You really made it. Right from the college days when all of us were wasting time roaming around, you spent your time among books in the library. You had big dreams at that time too, and we were amazed at your determination. Holding on to the same all this time, and working hard to reach it, you have proved again that it's not social or economic status, but one's hard work that matters.   I know that you will be an asset to this country with your integrity and dedication. All the best wishes to you for your future endeavors.   Yours sincerely, Aditya Kumar

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WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR ENGLISH TEACHER THANKING HIM FOR THE LESSONS 1HE GAVE, WHICH BROUGHT YOU SUCCESS IN LIFE.

  16, Batra road Bangalore 16th December 2015 Dear Sir,   I, Divyanshu, was your student when you taught at Sri Chitra High school, Kanpur. I do not know if you remember me, but I'd like to express my gratitude to you for the lessons you'd given.   I was afraid of English before you taught us. Your simple presentation of the language and the way you introduced us to the world of literature was what made me love English and thus, English literature. Even though many teachers have taught me after that, the structure of English that remained in my mind was constructed by you.   Yesterday, it was announced that I will be awarded with this year's Man Booker prize. This prize belongs more to you than me. Sir, since without you, I'd never have been introduced to the beauty of this language.   I dedicate this prize to you, and invite you to be present at the award felicitation ceremony.   Yours obediently, Divyanshu

                                                                                Personal Letter - 3

WRITE A LETTER TO A FRIEND EXPRESSING CONDOLENCE ON HIS MOTHER'S DEATH.

  56, Bhavesh Nagar Allahabad   17th September 2016   Dear Manu,   I came to know of the death of your mother from Vivek. I'm sorry for your loss, my friend. Your mother had been like a mother to me too, when I was away from my own family during our college days. I still remember the taste of aloo paranthas she used to make. She knew I loved them and made it whenever I came to your home. I even used to tease my mom that she couldn't make it as good as your mom used to.   Tears fill my eyes too, as I write this letter. Memories other are still fresh in my mind. I hope you're able to cope with her loss, for no matter what happens life has to go on. I really would’ve come to visit you had I been in good health.   Hold on, my friend. Things will be alright again.   Yours sincerely, Vishal