Reading Comprehension Passage: 20 | 100 RC`s for Government Exams Preparation - Bank Exams PDF Download

Directions: Read the following passage to answer the given questions based on it. Some words/phrases are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions. 
Ever since the morning after 26/11, India’s strategic community has discussed what the country ought to do when the next 26/11 happens. Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have to answer that question sooner than most people expect. The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) staged its first operation against an Indian target since 26/11 just hours before Mr. Modi took office, attacking India’s mission in Herat. Lashkar chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed blamed Mr. Modi for this week’s attacks on Karachi — and demanded vengeance.
From past evidence, we know these threats aren’t idle. “The only language India understands is that of force,” a press release issued by the Lashkar’s parent organisation, Jamaat-ud-Dawa recorded Mr. Saeed as saying before 26/11, “and that is the language it must be talked to in.”
From files he will have read since taking office, Mr. Modi will have learned why Dr. Singh did nothing. Indian combat jets could hit training camps across the Line of Control (LoC), Air Chief Marshal Fali Major said at a November 29 meeting called for by the Prime Minister, but precise coordinates and adequate imaging weren’t available. Later, General Deepak Kapoor, the chief of Army staff, told Dr. Singh he couldn’t promise special forces’ strikes would be successful either.
No one could guarantee missile strikes wouldn’t escalate into war, or even a nuclear exchange — and no one could guarantee war would compel Pakistan’s military to change course.
Mr. Modi’s advisers know five responses are on the table — but all of them involve great risks. The first is to keep doing nothing. The threat of a major India-Pakistan crisis after 26/11 led the United States to mount intense pressure on Pakistan. In the years since, the LeT hasn’t mounted a single major operation on Indian soil. Its affiliate, the Indian Mujahideen, has had restraint thrust upon it by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.
Inaction, though, only succeeds if someone else does the hard work. In 2008, fearing its own war in Afghanistan would be undermined by an India-Pakistan war, the U.S. stepped in. Now, as it prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, the country’s appetite for playing global policeman is diminishing. Doing nothing could thus invite even more punishment.
Like Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mr. Modi’s second choice might be coercion. In 2001, after terrorists attacked Parliament, India mobilised troops. Pakistan was forced to respond — but its smaller economy suffered disproportionately. The stratagem is time-tested. In 1953, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru mobilised troops in Punjab to deter a Pakistani attack into Kashmir.
Mr. Vajpayee’s strategy worked, forcing Pakistan to dramatically scale down the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir. It only worked, though, because the U.S. played mediator — much like after 26/11 — and it was hideously expensive, in money and lives.
The third choice is to do what Dr. Singh couldn’t: limited strikes on jihadist training camps across the LoC, using air power or missiles. In the five years since 26/11, India’s ability to conduct such strikes has been significantly enhanced. However, the tactic hasn’t had great success. In August 1998, the United States fired missiles into Afghanistan, seeking to avenge bombings which killed 224 people. In all, 75 missiles, each priced at $1.5 million, killed six minor jihadists. Moreover, Pakistan could hit back, targeting Indian industrial infrastructure, which is much more expensive than tent-and-donkey cart training camps.
Fourth, the Prime Minister could tell Indian troops to target the Pakistan Army along the LoC, using artillery and infantry — a task aided by the fact that its defences along stretches of the Neelam valley have been degraded by troops having to be moved to fight the Tehreek-e-Taliban elsewhere. The fighting that will follow though will make it more difficult to secure the LoC against jihadist infiltration — leading to heightened violence in Kashmir.
Mr. Modi could, finally, authorise the use of covert means, like bomb-for-bomb strikes or targeted assassination of jihadist leaders. Mr. Modi’s intelligence services, though, don’t have this arrow in their quiver — and it will be a while, most experts say, before they can acquire it.
Every sane person should hope Mr. Modi will never be required to exercise any of his military options — but thinking through war is just as important as talking peace.