th November Basic Fillers€¦ · has been working to make India a cashless economy. With the ubiquity of Aadhaar, smartphones and the new unified payments interface (UPI)-based apps,

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16th NovemberCloze Test – The Hindu

The Geographical Indication (GI) Registry andIntellectual Property India on Tuesday_______(1)______ the Geographical Indication Tagstatus to Banglar Rasogolla ______(2)_____ WestBengal and Mamallapuram stone sculptures ofTamil Nadu. West Bengal was ________(3)_____ ina lengthy battle with Odisha, ______(4)_______too had claimed Rasogolla as its______(5)_______.

1. (a) declared (b) announced(c) presented (d) decided

2. (a) by (b) in(c) of (d) from

3. (a) found (b) grappled(c) involved (d) included

4. (a) they (b) which(c) that (d) it

5. (a) product (b) domain(c) search (d) invention

Parajumble – SE404A. US regulators approved the first medicine

with an embedded sensor

B. sending a signal to a patch worn on thepatient’s torso and transmitting theinformation to a smartphone app.

C. The sensor, developed by Proteus, isactivated by stomach fluids,

D. a so-called digital pill made by OtsukaPharmaceutical Co. and Proteus DigitalHealth.

E. The pill is a version of Otsuka’s Abilify,which treats depression, bipolar disorder andschizophrenia.

F. to help keep track of whether patients areadhering to their prescriptions,

Basic Fillers31. She had clearly no ________ of doing anywork, although she was very well paid.A) desire B) ambition C) willingnessD) intention E) meaning

32. The car salesman took the customer for adrive in the new model in order to ________ itsimproved features.A) advocate B) demonstrate C) exhibitD) reveal E) expound

33. The actual ________ by which coal Isextracted is well worth watching.A) conduct B) process C) processionD) pattern E) fashion

34. If we ______ the plan you suggest, we aremore likely to be successful.A) decide B) elect C) commandD) vote E) adopt

35. The child was ________ for getting his shoesand socks wet.A) corrected B) remonstrated C) sufferedD) scolded E) complained

36. Certainly man must ________ the future, andfind ways of providing for his needs.A) look to B) look up C) look afterD) look for E) look on

37. He took the day off work to ________ hisaunt’s funeral.A) accompany B) regard C) assistD) attend E) follow

38. His energetic efforts met with only ________success.A) particular B) proportionate C) partialD) entire E) complete

39. My rifle was not ________, so I did not hitanything.A) from the best B) for the better C) of the bestD) for the best E) of the better

40. Any student who ________ his homework isunlikely to pass his examination.A) reduces B) neglects C) practicesD) denies E) offends

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Common Error – CGL171. According to me, it’s a bad film.

2. It was a too good party to miss.

3. Whole Paris was celebrating.

4. I nearly wish I’d stayed at home.

5. One Speaks Italian in my town.

Note: Answers on Sunday

Idioms – Theory1.

Cack-handedLacking skill in doing things with hands or indealing with peopleRob made a attempt to fix the door and nowit won’t close at all.What struck me was the cack-handed way hedealt with the whole situation.

2.Be in cahootsTo be planning or doing sth dishonest withsomeoneThere are theories that someone in thegovernment was in the cahoots with theassassin.

3.Have your cake and eat itTo have both things that are availableHe wants to have his cake and eat it. Hewants the security of marriage and theexcitement of affaires.

4.Call sb’s bluffTo tell sb to do what they are threatening todoAlice called his bluff and dared him to telleveryone what he knew about her.

5.Call sb namesTo use insulting wordsI was afraid that if I wore glasses to school,the other students will call me names.

6.A can of wormsTo start doing sth that will cause a lot ofproblemsOnce you start making concessions toindividual members of staff, you really opena can of worms.

7.Have a card up your sleeveTo have a plan/idea to gain advantage kepthidden until it is neededI still had a card up my sleeve in the form ofa letter from his father.

8.Not have a care in the worldTo not have any worriesBabies are the luckiest, they do not have acare in the world.He was walking along the street whistling,looking as if he didn’t have a care in theworld.

9.Carrot-and-stickTo persuade sb to try harder by offeringrewardThe emphasis is on the carrot of incentiverather than the stick of taxes.

10.Carry a torch for sbTo secretly love sb who doesn’t love youbackGraeme’s been carrying a torch for Linda foryears.

11.Put the cart before the horseTo do things in wrong orderDeciding what to wear before you’ve evenbeen invited to the party is rather putting thecart before the horse.

12.Be cast in the same mouldTo have same type of characterJack is cast in the same mould as his father –intelligent, kind, but stubborn.





13.Cast aspersions on sbTo criticize someone or someone’s characterHis opponents cast aspersions on hispatriotism.

14.Cast ironA promise that can be trusted completelyNo new business comes with a cast ironguarantee of success.

15.Be like a cat on a hot tin roofTo be nervous and unable to keep stillWhat is the matter with her? She is like a caton a hot tin roof.

Answers:

Cloze Test - CCCBD

Parajumble – AFDECB

Basic Fillers - 31-D 32-B 33-B 34-E 35-D 36-A37-D 38-C 39-C 40-B





The last resort: on ThomasChandy’s resignationThere is usually little to be gained in delayingthe inevitable by a day or two. After the KeralaHigh Court passed strictures against him forfiling a petition against his own government,Transport Minister Thomas Chandyshould havehad the good sense to resign immediately. But,quite inexplicably, he dithered on the issue,embarrassing Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayanand creating divisions within the ruling LeftDemocratic Front (LDF). Indeed, once AlappuzhaDistrict Collector T.V. Anupama submitted areport on alleged encroachments by a companyin which he holds a stake, Mr. Chandy shouldhave stepped down as a matter of propriety. Bymoving the court challenging the Collector’sreport, prepared on the orders of thegovernment, he virtually invited the judicialreprimand on himself. That he entertained thehope of tiding over the political crisis engulfinghim even after the court’s strictures betrays astrange mix of nose-in-the-air arrogance andhead-in-the-sand ignorance. For the past fewmonths, Mr. Chandy has been caught inthe encroachments controversy. The Lake PalaceResort, part-owned by him, came under a cloudover issues related to reclamation of paddy landto create a vehicle park, diversion of the courseof rivulets for construction activities, and layingof an approach road to the resort by filling paddyfields. That the Minister chose to stand by theresort, and not with the government, was thereal shocker.

As for Mr. Vijayan, he should have sacked Mr.Chandy instead of leaving it to the NationalistCongress Party to secure his resignation. Thatthe Minister belonged to a smaller allied partyand that the LDF is bound by acoalition dharma are justifications that do notwash in the face of a strong judicial stricture.Not surprisingly, the Communist Party of Indiasaw things differently and boycotted a Cabinetmeeting on the ground that Mr. Chandy was aparticipant. The party argued that Mr. Chandycould not be expected to discharge hisresponsibilities as a Minister after having

challenged the government in a court of law. TheCPI’s strident stand can also be explained by thefact that one of its members, E.Chandrasekharan, holds the Revenue portfolioand was monitoring the action against theencroachments. The eventual exit of Mr. Chandyon Wednesday might pave the way for the returnof his party colleague A.K. Saseendran to theCabinet. Mr. Saseendran had to resign followinga questionable sting operation in which he isheard allegedly seeking sexual favours from awoman. The LDF is not short of talent, butcoalition dynamics require that Mr. Vijayanreplace Mr. Chandy with the only other MLAfrom the NCP. Despite a comfortable majority,Mr. Vijayan might not want to risk upsetting thepolitical equations within the LDF. The real testfor him will be to ensure that governance doesnot suffer amid his deft political manoeuvres.

Daily Vocab – The Hindu Editorial – 16th NovThe last resort: on Thomas Chandy’sresignation

Strictures – rule that restricts बा यताDithered – to hesitate about what to do दु वधाStep down – resign इ तीफ़ा देनाReprimand – rebuke डाटंनाTide over – to help by providing what they needकाबू पानाEngulf – to affect sb very strongly भा वत होनाunder a cloud – if sb is under a cloud, otherpeople think that they have done sth wrong संदेहमReclamation – to get something back फर से पानाRivulet – a very small river छोट नदStrident – determined कठोर रा ताPave the way – to create a situation to do sthतैयार करनाDeft – skillful and quick चालाकManoeuvre – a clever plan or action





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You’ve tried the grammar method.Did you succeed???

If not, trycomprehension.


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NITI Aayog chief executive officer Amitabh Kantrecently spoke of debit cards, credit cards andATMs becoming redundant in the next three tofour years. Since demonetisation, the governmenthas been working to make India a cashlesseconomy. With the ubiquity of Aadhaar,smartphones and the new unified paymentsinterface (UPI)-based apps, it wants to move onfrom cash to a digital payments economy—whereeverything from payment to receipt is done online.

Kant’s prediction about debit and credit cards hasthe potential to come true because theinfrastructure to replace physical cards, as well asthe momentum in the adoption of alternativepayment mechanisms, is well under way. Whiledebit and credit cards continue to dominate retaildigital payments, the UPI and prepaid paymentinstruments (PPIs) are catching up.

Between 2014-15 and 2016-17, the share of PPIsin total volume of card transactions increased from18% to 36%. PPIs caught on when customersdidn’t want to authenticate recurring transactionsthrough the two-factor authentication process.That is why they linked their prepaid wallets withcab-hailing, mobile-recharge and grocery-shoppingservices. Then, in August 2016 came UPI, based onbanks’ immediate payment service (IMPS). It linkedthe user’s various bank accounts to a single mobileapplication, doing away with the need to recharge awallet. UPI transaction volumes have increasedfrom 4.2 million in January to 30 million inSeptember 2017 (growing 85% between Augustand September itself). While PPIs still have muchhigher volumes (87 million) right now, UPI is eatinginto their share as well as that of cards. This isexpected to continue with the launch of UPI 2.0,which will bring the ease of pre-authorizeddeductions for recurring payments, like cab rides,to UPI, along with a possible increase in thetransaction limit from the present Rs1 lakh. MajorPPIs have already integrated UPI into their serviceso as to not lose customers to competing UPI-onlyapps.

With regard to offering a point of sale (POS)payment solution, Samsung is the first mover inIndia, offering a mobile payment mode that workson all existing terminals—whether contactless ornot—with Samsung Pay; the technology is availableon select handsets. Samsung’s entry is likely to befollowed by that of Google and Apple, which canlead to wider adoption.

Thus, cards might well be on their way out. Butmaking ATMs redundant is a task of vastlydifferent proportions. An ATM’s role is to dispensecash, and reducing the dependence on cashrequires a massive increase in the adoption of

bank accounts, mobile wallets and paymentplatforms. There are several challenges here.

A prerequisite to a less-cash economy is financialinclusion. The Economic Survey, 2015-16 reportedthat the basic savings bank penetration was 46%across states, on average. The Jan Dhan Yojana(JDY) had laudably managed to open 294 millionbank accounts as of August 2017, increasingaccess to the formal banking system for theunbanked masses, but a quarter of them remainzero-balance inoperative accounts.

If people received income in their bank accountsand could spend digitally, they could go cashless.But most people work in the informal economy andget paid in cash. Then there is the scarce use ofmobile payment platforms. Most product vendorsstill don’t use a mobile platform to receivepayments because there are limited use-cases fordigital money. Take the case of Thane’s Dasaivillage, which was touted as India’s first cashlessvillage last year,but has gone back to its old ways.The village doesn’t have a reliable internet service,which hampers the functioning of POS devices andeven ATMs. All applicants haven’t been issued ATMcards and since cash has become available, peoplehave had little reason to use them anyway.

Finally, mobile wallets are largely designed for useon smartphones, and 56% of Indians still usefeature phones. Given the frequent power outages,poor connectivity and low income, smartphoneshave limited utility for most people. Moreover,recent offers have reduced the acquisition cost ofhandsets to near-zero; and survey data fromKantar IMRB shows that only 15% of the currentfeature-phone users intend to buy a smartphone.UPI does work with feature phones, but it wasused for just 0.19 million transactions out of the 9million that happened in May.

India has been unable to increase accessibility tobanks within the formal banking system; only 27%villages have a bank branch within 5km. But theincrease in the number of payment banks canbring the basic banking functions of securingdeposits, providing an ATM-debit card and allowingaccess to online payment gateways.

Interoperability across PPIs may increase adoptionby vendors and, therefore, increase the use-casesfor people. But the largely informal nature of theeconomy, the preponderance of feature phones andthe old habit of using cash are enduring problemsthat will keep the cashless economy fromspreading outside urban centres for many years.


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th November Basic Fillers€¦ · has been working to make India a cashless economy. With the ubiquity of Aadhaar, smartphones and the new unified payments interface (UPI)-based apps,