CLASS 12 SUBJECT- ENGLISH

Section ‘A’ (Reading)

1. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:

(A)For many years the governments have been promising the eradication of child labour in
hazardous industries in India. But the truth is that despite all the rhetoric no government so
far has succeeded in eradicating this evil, nor has any been able to ensure compulsory
primary education for every Indian child. Between 60 and 100 million children are still at
work instead of going to school and around 10 million are working in hazardous industries.
India has the biggest child population of 380 million in the world and the largest number of
children who are forced to earn a living.

(B)We have many laws that ban child labour in hazardous industries. According to the Child
Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, the employment of children below the age of
14 in hazardous occupations has been strictly banned. But each state has different rules
regarding the minimum age of employment. This makes implementation of these laws
difficult. There is no ban in child labour in non-hazardous occupations. The act applies to
the organised or factory sector and not the unorganised or informal sector where most
children find employment as cleaners, servants, porters, waiters etc. among other forms of
unskilled work. Thus, child labour continues because the implementation of the existing
laws in lax.

(C)There are industries, which have a special demand for child labour because of their nimble
fingers, high level of concentration and capacity to work hard at abysmally low wages. The
carpet industry in U.P. and Kashmir employs children to make hand-knotted carpets. There
are 80,000 child workers in Jammu and Kashmir alone. In Kashmir because of the political
unrest, children are forced to work while many schools are shut. Industries like gem cutting
and polishing pottery and glass want to remain competitive by employing children. The
truth is that it is poverty which is pushing children into the brutish labour market. We have
260 million people below the poverty line in India, a large number of them are women. Poor
and especially women-headed families, have no option but to push their little ones in this
hard life in hostile conditions, with no human and labour rights.

(D)There is a lobby which argues that there is nothing wrong with children working as long as
the environment for work is conducive to learning new skills, but studies have shown that
the children are made to do boring, repetitive and tedious jobs and are not taught new skills
as they grow older. In these hell-holes like the sweet shops of the old there is no hope.
Children working in hazardous industries are prone to debilitating diseases which can
cripple them for life. By sitting in cramped, damp and unhygienic spaces, their limbs
become deformed for life. Inside matchstick, fire works and glass industries they are victims
of bronchial diseases and TB. Their mental and physical development is permanently
impaired by long hours of work. Once trapped, they can’t get out of this vicious circle of
poverty. They remain uneducated and powerless. Finally, in later years, they too are
compelled to send their own children to work. Child labour perpetuates its own nightmare.
(E)If at all the government was serious about granting children their right, an intensive effort
ought to have been made to implement the Supreme Court’s directive of 1997 which laid
down punitive action against employers of child labour. Only compulsory primary education
can eliminate child labour. Surely, if 380 million children are given a better life and
elementary education, India’s human capital would be greatly enhanced. But that needs, as
former president Abdul Kalam said “a second vision”.

Questions :

(a) On which two counts has the government not succeeded so far in respect of children? 2
(b) What makes the implementation of child labour law difficult? 2
(c) Why do the industries prefer child labour? 2
(d) What are the adverse effects of hazardous industries on children? Give any two. 2
(e) What does the Supreme Court’s directive of 1997 provide? 1
(f) Find words from the passage which mean the same as the following : 3

(1)dangerous (para A)

(2)very unfriendly (para C)

(3) elementary (para E)

2 . Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:

The kingdom of books is as vast as the universe, for there is no corner of it which they
have left unexplored. There is no dearth of books on any topic, be it as simple as the composition
of sodium nitrate or as intricate as the mechanism of a spacecraft rocketting towards Mars. We
make use of books for the dissemination of useful ideas, for popularizing the fruits of our
research in various fields of knowledge, and for spreading our progressive views on matters
which are of vital concern to our fellow beings. In fact, no single product of human labour has
been as helpful to the advancement of civilization as books which are written in all languages of
the world and which are decoratively placed in bookshelves in our homes and tastefully
displayed in bookstalls and libraries. If to Keats, works of ancient poets like Homer were realms
of gold from which he derived much joy as well as inspiration, to the modern lover of books, the
labours of all geniuses, including those of Keats, are mines of inestimable intellectual wealth
which he goes on exploring for the sake of his mental and spiritual advancement.

There was a time some five centuries back when books, as we know them today, did not
exist, and when there were few people who could read things written on stuff that certainly was
not paper. At that time our ancestors used rocks, pillars and parchment with a view to recording
and perpetuating their most important thoughts and achievements in the language they then
understood, nowadays the book-producing machinery gives to the work of very great scientific
thinker, poet or philosopher the character of permanence, reproduces in attractive forms old and
rare manuscripts and caters to the differing tastes of millions of people for whom book-reading
is an extremely pleasant, intellectual exercise. Moreover, the high percentage of literacy, the
growth of libraries in towns and villages and the tendency of intellectuals to have their own
private collection of useful books, have given birth to a number of big publishing houses with
branches in many parts of the world and publications numbering thousands. In recent years,
paperbacks have begun to reveal their attraction for the reading public, and although they have
not completely thrown into neglect the hard-cover market, they have appealed to people who
would not have thought of buying books not so very long ago. These paperbacks are generally
reprints of popular fiction or of established classics or translations from foreign workers which
are in constant demand at all bookstalls.

QUESTIONS:

(A) On the basis of your reading of the above passage make notes on it, using headings and
sub-headings. Use recognisable abbreviations wherever necessary. 5
(B) Write a summary of the above passage in about 80 words. 3