English — Set 23

Context: The casual horrors and real disasters are thrown at newspaper reader without discrimination. In the contemporary arrangements for circulating the news, an important element, evaluation is always weak and often wanting entirely. There is no point anywhere along the line somewhere someone put his foot down for certain and says, "This is important and that does not amount to row of beans; deserves no ones attention, and should travel the wires no farther". The junk is dressed up to look as meaningful as the real news.

Context: Study the following passage and answer the question which is based on it (10-14) The Indian middle class consist of so many strata that it defies categorisation under a single term class, which would imply a considerable degree of homogeneity. Yet two paradoxical features characterise its conduct fairly uniformly; extensive practice and intensive abhorrence of corruption. In the several recent surveys of popular perceptions of corruptions, politicians of course invariably and understandably top the list, closely followed by bureaucrats, policemen, lawyers, businessmen and others. The quintessential middle class. If teachers do not figure high on this priority list, it is not for lack of trying, but for lack of opportunities. Over the years, the sense of shock over acts of corruption in the middle class has witnessed a steady decline, as its ambitions for a better material life have soared but the resources for meeting such ambitions have not kept pace. What is fascinating, however, is the intense yearning of this class for a clean corruptionless politics and society, a yearning that has again and again surfaced with any figure public or obscure, focus on his mission of eradicating corruption. Even the repeated failure of this promise on virtually every man's part has not subjected it to the law of diminishing returns.