Passage Based Questions: English - 4 | Passage Based Questions for CLAT Preparation PDF Download

Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
Last winter, I happened to be in one of the remotest corners of India, in a place called Sankri, in Uttarakhand. Sankri is close to Yamunotri, the origin of the river Yamuna. I was visiting Sankri on an invitation from the United Nations Development Programme to meet and orient people from five villages into alternative employment opportunities since their traditional occupation ‘agro-pastoralism’ had been deeply affected by the region falling under the Govind Pashu Vihar, a protected high-altitude forest, now under the UNDP’s snow leopard conservation programme.
As we drove up the narrow, serpentine roads, we saw hydro-electric projects in what was no-man’s land until a few years ago. I was completely shocked by the progress the place made, with the snow-capped ranges almost obscured by a number of hotels, cafes and guest houses that have come up in the last few years. The region, they informed me, had recently been discovered by adventure tourism companies as a trekking destination for popular winter treks such as Kedarkantha and Har-ki-Doon. I saw large groups of young people descending on Sankri when other regions like Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh would be effectively closed due to the excessive snow. This is due to the fact that the Sankri trails themselves are largely free of snow, and therefore easier to climb, while the peaks offer fantastic Himalayan panoramas and ample opportunity for the kind of adventure one might boast of on social media.
These operators have scant regard for local cultural sensibilities or the environment and have set up large facilities in collusion with the powers that be in what is essentially a protected tribal area. The employment and revenues generated by brisk adventure tourism is going entirely to these companies and their experts brought in from the bigger cities. Thanks to this assault on their property and culture, the locals are left picking up the crumbs as bearers and porters while others maximise profits. Another familiar tale of internal colonialism, some would say. Why I chose to describe it as internal colonialism is because post-independence, Uttarakhand emerged as a state only in the year 2000, its progress hampered by the oppressive decision-making from faraway Lucknow by then. However, when the struggle seemed to be finally over, another class of rulers took over the newly-formed state, even more colonial and insensitive than the earlier masters. Completely driven by their own commercial interests and lack of ideas, the gap between what the people want and what they deliver is much wider than the Yamuna gorges.
A year on, news from Sankri is not very heartening. A road has been approved right up to Osla. The road, not even notified as a forest road but a Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana project, will cut right through the protected zones and bring in hordes of selfie-obsessed thrill-seekers. The rich and the powerful from Delhi, meanwhile, have already gone ahead and secured land deals with the hapless villagers to set up their resorts.