[Mission 2023] Insta–DART (Daily Aptitude and Reasoning Test) 11 April 2023

In India, corruption is a form of patronage; a politician or bureaucrat who takes the bribe then has to let it cascade among a series of lesser bureaucrats and elected officials, who will make sure that the pet projects are completed. An honest politician has no goodies to toss around. This limits his effectiveness profoundly, because political power in India is dispersed throughout a multi-tiered federal structure; a local official who has not been paid off can sometimes stop a billion-dollar project. This is why many Indians have a sneaking suspicion – and there is anecdotal evidence to back this up – that only corrupt politicians are effective ones.

What does the above passage imply?

Not only can hemp be used for an astonishing number of products, its net environmental benefit is impressive. Among the more salient features, hemp grows in a variety of climates and soil types, is naturally resistant to most pests, and grows very tightly spaced allowing it to outcompete most weeds. A natural substitute for cotton and wood fiber, hemp can also be pulped using fewer chemicals than wood because of its low lignin content. Its natural brightness can obviate the need to use chlorine bleach.

The passage focuses on:

It has been remarked that ‘post-truth’ is very different from similar terms with the prefix post-, such as postcolonialism and postmodernism. No one who uses postcolonialism or postmodernism argues that colonialism and modernism are no longer relevant. However, the assumption behind ‘post-truth’ is that the concept of truth is no longer relevant. It is worth asking: why do we not talk of ‘postfalsehood’? After all, the opposite of truth is not post-truth but falsehood. In that case, if we can have an age of post-truth, we should be able to talk of an age of post-falsehood too. Having gone past truth, we should also be able to go past its opposite: falsehood. This, however, is not the case.

The passage seems to suggest that:

In the chaos that prevails around us, there is a growing feeling of desolation and misery. The pace of modern times has upset the rhythm of life and the music is slowly ebbing out. Living in a harsh world we have developed cynicism and hatred. Our inner life is marked by wrestling of competing forces. Love and jealousy, pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, ideal and reality, dream and truth; they are all in a state of eternal conflict. The most authentic hope comes from mystics whose philosophy combines the virtuous message of formal religion with the transcendental values of love and harmony. Sufism is the lodestar for all mystical schools. It enables an individual to purge his mind of all toxic emotions and helps restore balance and harmony. It is both therapeutic and transcendent and the most gentler and colorful form of mysticism.

The passage relates to: