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eA. The Supreme Court in various judgements in the last 25 years has further emphasized this. aB. The Right to Information is derived from Article 19 of the Constitution. bC. The RTI Act was passed in May 2005 and came into force in October 2005. dD. It is intended to give relevant information about the government and its institutions. cE. This Act enables citizens to obtain information without going to court each time.

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2. bA. Riots had to be contained, food shortages to be overcome, princely states (as many as five hundred) to be integrated, refugees (almost ten million) to be resettled. dB. It is safe to say that no modern politician had anywhere near as difficult a job as Jawaharlal Nehru’s. aC. At Independence, the country he was asked to lead was faced with horrific problems. cD.This, so to say, was the task of fire-fighting; to be followed by the equally daunting task of nationbuilding.

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d A.This is problematic both theoretically and practically, because it has grave consequences for the way society views and treats the fundamental issues of women's lives. bB. Crimes such as these against any group other than women would be recognized as a civil and political emergency as well as a gross violation of the victims' humanity. aC. Significant numbers of the world's population are routinely subject to torture, starvation, terrorism, humiliation, mutilation, and even murder simply because they are female. cD. Yet, despite a clear record of deaths and demonstrable abuse, women's rights are not commonly classified as human rights.

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4. dA. Such killings came to have social acceptance among the lower classes of society. bB. The PWG used violence as a tactic to motivate and encourage the lower cadres. cC.The first such brutal murder of an exploitative landlord was in 1978 when one Pitambar Rao was killed publicly. aD. Social inequalities, the widening gulf between the rich and the poor, exploitation by the higher castes in Andhra Pradesh and more importantly the loss of self-respect by the downtrodden helped in establishing Kondappally Seetharamiah's Peoples’ War Group (PWG) in the 1960s.

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4. A. Such killings came to have social acceptance among the lower classes of society. B. The PWG used violence as a tactic to motivate and encourage the lower cadres. C.The first such brutal murder of an exploitative landlord was in 1978 when one Pitambar Rao was killed publicly. D. Social inequalities, the widening gulf between the rich and the poor, exploitation by the higher castes in Andhra Pradesh and more importantly the loss of self-respect by the downtrodden helped in establishing Kondappally Seetharamiah's Peoples’ War Group (PWG) in the 1960s. 6. cA. Like Hobbes, he also uses the hypothetical State of Nature as a basis for his arguments. bB. It is a state of peace and liberty for all.

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aC. Locke’s social contract theory formed the basis of the natural rights theory as we interpret it today. dD. However, his version of this condition is only pre-political and unlike Hobbes, not pre-moral.

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7b. A.The debate is what the revolution will replace the current reality with. aB. The debate is not whether Indian society needs a revolution or not . dC. These are too important to be left blunt in the hands of distant leaders and underdeveloped institutions. cD. To hasten that revolution and what it brings, the rest of us only have very few, yet powerful, weapons like democracy, good governance and rule of law.

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8.dA. It was observed that awareness about intellectual disability is very low in this region compared to other areas of the state. aB. Most of the time intellectual disability was understood and treated as a mental illness. bC. People are not aware about the Persons with Disability Act (PDA) and its provisions. cD. Because of this misunderstanding the misconceptions attached to mental illness also extended to intellectual disability.

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9.aA. Decisions to mix leprosy and non–leprosy patients in the same ward should be treaded with caution as there is still much left to be done. dB. Prejudices however exist with regards to sharing facilities at a personal level with the leprosy affected persons. bC. There is no reluctance to attend the hospital due to stigma against leprosy. cD. A study revealed the beliefs and attitudes of non–leprosy respondents can be described as fairly good.

10. 10d.A. His political base, though, had little appetite for increasing the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. aB. The number of violent incidents had risen over 35 percent in Kabul, and over 75 percent in southern Afghanistan between 2007 and 2008, while civilian casualties resulting from fighting more than doubled in the two years after 2006. bC. The current US government inherited a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan from the George W Bush presidency. cD. During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly framed the Afghanistan war as the "good" war, contrasting it to the unpopular war in Iraq, which was widely perceived in the United States as an avoidable conflict.

11. 11.dA. Finally, Afghanistan is often believed to be irredeemable due to its widespread illiteracy. aB. A big myth in Afghanistan is that democracy or stable government is incompatible with tribal values.

bC. This line of reasoning is reminiscent of such notions of democracy being inconsistent with "Asian values", a fiction that has only too recently been exposed as such. cD. But India, which admittedly benefitted from stronger institutions inherited from decades of British rule, managed to forge a successful pluralistic democracy with a population that was just one-fifth literate in 1947.

12. 12.A. The critics are not wrong: with its song and dance routine; muddled story lines; and escapist fare, popular cinema of which Bollywood fantasy dramas represent an apogee frequently bear little semblance to reality. B. Unrealistic and simplistic as Bollywood may be, its exaggerations are still reflective of the prevailing social norms. C. The evolution of Amitabh Bachchan, easily the tallest Bollywood star over the last few decades, reflects the changing milieu of Hindi cinema, which, in turn, draws inspiration from how the Indian society has evolved. D. Popular Cinema in general, and the Indian film industry in particular, is frequently accused of caricature.

13. 13.A. But perhaps this difficulty of mapping society is one not confined to sociologists alone. B. When amidst foreigners reference to ‘our society’ may mean ‘Indian society’, but when amongst fellow Indians we may use the term ‘our society’ to denote a linguistic or ethnic community, a religious or caste or tribal society. C. In the contemporary world we belong, in a sense, to more than one ‘society’. D. This diversity makes deciding which ‘society’ we are talking about difficult.

14. 14.A. Often we are prone to assume that all families are like the ones we live in. B. No other social institution appears more universal and unchanging. C. Sociology and social anthropology have over many decades conducted field research across cultures to show how the institutions of family, marriage and kinship are important in all societies and yet their character is different in different societies. D. Perhaps no other social entity appears more ‘natural’ than the family.

15. 15. A. Besides this, no organ of the government can act in a manner that violates them. B. While ordinary legal rights are protected and enforced by ordinary law, Fundamental Rights are protected and guaranteed by the constitution of the country. C. Ordinary rights may be changed by the legislature by ordinary process of law making, but a fundamental right may only be changed by amending the Constitution itself. D. Fundamental Rights are different from other rights available to us.

16. 16. A. Right to Equality provides for equal access to public places like shops, hotels, places of entertainment, wells, bathing ghats and places of worship. B. This right is very important because our society did not practice equal access in the past. C. There cannot be any discrimination in this access on the basis of caste, creed, colour, sex, religion, or place of birth. D. It also prohibits any discrimination in public employment on any of the above mentioned basis.

17. 17. A. The provisions of the 73rd amendment were not made applicable to the areas inhabited by the Adivasi populations in many States of India. B. Therefore, the new act protects the rights of these communities to manage their resources in ways acceptable to them. C. In 1996, a separate act was passed extending the provisions of the Panchayat system to these areas. D Many Adivasi communities have their traditional customs of managing common resources such as forests and small water reservoirs, etc.

18. 18. A. There are more than 20 major languages and several hundred minor ones and it is the home of several major religions. B. There are several million indigenous peoples living in different parts of the country. C. In spite of all these diversities we share a common land mass. D. India is a land of continental proportions and immense diversities.

19. 19.A. A culture of trust, cooperation, mutual respect and restraint helps federations to function smoothly. B. Real politics, culture, ideology and history determine the actual working of a federation. C. Political parties also determine the way a constitution would work. D. If any single unit or State or linguistic group or ideology comes to dominate the entire federation it could generate a deep resentment among people or its units not sharing the dominant voice.

20. 20. A. For example, physicists have what is called a Big-bang theory to explain how the universe came to be formed. B Psychology influenced by Descartes and later on by the developments in physics has grown by following what is called a hypothetico-deductive model. C. The model suggests that scientific advancement can take place if you have a theory to explain a phenomenon. D. Theory is nothing else but a set of statements about how a certain complex phenomenon can be explained with the help of propositions which are interrelated.

21. 21. A. Wundt was interested in the study of conscious experience and wanted to analyse the constituents or the building blocks of the mind. B. It grew out of ancient philosophy concerned with questions of psychological significance. C. Psychology as a modern discipline, which is influenced to a large extent by Western developments, has a short history. D. But the formal beginning of modern psychology is traced back to 1879 when the first experimental laboratory was established in Leipzig, Germany by Wilhelm Wundt.

22. 22. A. Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had committed this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. B. Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his father's action and assumed that Albus too was a Mugglehater. C. They could not have been more mistaken: As anybody who knew Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. D. Beyond that, Dumbledore refused to speak of the sad business, though many attempted to make him do so.

23. 23. A. Despite having over 300 universities, not a single Indian university is listed in the top 100 universities of the world. B. Even those who have access are not ensured of quality. C. Experts acknowledge that the present higher education system in India is not equipped to address the shortage of skilled manpower problem without some changes in the basic structure. D. Official records show that the gross enrolment ratio in higher education is only 11 per cent while the National Knowledge Commission says only seven per cent of the population between the age group of 1824 enters higher education.

24. A. Theories of complex social formation have permitted legal feminists to analyze with more nuance and contextually the interplay of factors that contribute to women’s disempowerment. B. The constructivist turn in feminist theorizing has sparked difficult yet illuminating debates among feminist legal theorists. C. These theories have pressed feminists to address not only sex inequality but the bipolar understanding of gender that constrains and normalizes perceived differences between women and men. D. Yet the premises of more thoroughgoing versions of constructivism have also come into frank conflict with some of the liberal premises underpinning much of feminist legal theory.

25. A. Indian society has tried very hard to sweep the issue of child sexual abuse under the carpet. B. In a democracy, unless the society recognizes the need for a law to regulate an issue, the issue is not addressed. C. But the first step is obviously an acknowledgement of the issue itself. D. It starts with the family hushing up instances of sexual abuse of children within the family, resulting in underreporting of the issue and a gross underestimation of the gravity of the problem.