Practice Paper for IBPS, Bank Exams

A pioneering new book, Gender and Green Governance, explores a central question: If women had adequate representation in forestry institutions, would it make a difference to them, their communities, and forests as a national resource? Interview with the author.

Why has access to forests been such a conflictridden issue?

This is not surprising. Forests constitute not just community and national wealth, but global wealth. But for millions, forests are also critical for livelihoods and their daily lives.
Your first book. Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes (1986), was about forests. Is there an evolution of argument here?
Yes indeed : In Cold Hearts and Barren Slopes, I had argued that social forestry, with its topdown implementation and focus on commercial species, was neither ‘social’ nor forestry’, and would protect neither forests nor village livelihoods. The answer, I argued, lay in allowing forests com-munities to manage local forests. Fi-nally, in 1990, India launched the joint forest management programme and Nepal also started community forestry. So I decided to see for myself how community forestry was actually doing.

Between 1995 and 1999, I travelled extensively across India and Nepal and found paradox :
Forests were indeed becoming greener but women’s problem of firewood shortages persisted and in many cases had become more acute. Also, despite their high stakes in forests, women continued to be largely excluded from forest management. I coined the term “participatory exclusions” to describe this. However, the current book is less about women’s exclusion.’ I ask :What if women were present in forest governance ? What difference would that make?
But has this question not been raised before?
Economists researching environmental collective action have paid little attention to gender. Scholars from other disciplines focusing on gender and governance have been concerned mainly with women’s near absence from governance institutions.’ The presumption is that once women are present all good things will follow. But can we as time this? No. Rural women’s relationship with forests is complex.
On the one hand, their everyday dependence on forests for firewood fodder, etc, creates a strong stake in conservation. On the other, the same dependence can compel them to extract heavily from forests. As one landless woman told me. ‘Of course, it hurts me to cut a green branch but what do I do if my children are hungry? Taking an agnostic position, I decided to test varied propositions, controlling for other factors.

What did you find?

First, women’s greater presence enhances their effective voice in decision-making. And there is a critical mass effect If forests management groups have 25-33 per cent female members in their executive committees it significantly increases the likelihood of women attending meetings, speaking up and holding office. However, the inclusion of landless women makes a particular difference. When present in sufficient numbers they are more likely to attend meetings and voice
their concerns than landed women. So what matters is not just including more women, but more poor women.
Second, and unexpectedly, groups with more women typically make stricter forest use rules. Why is this the case? Mainly because they receive poorer forests from the forest department. To regenerate these they have to sacrifice their immediate needs. Women from households with some land have some fallback. But remarkably even in groups with more landless women, although extraction is higher, they still balance self interest with conservation goals, when placed in decision
making positions.
Third, groups with more women outperform other groups in improving forest conditions, despite getting poorer forests. Involving women substantially improves protection and conflict resolution,helps the use of their knowledge of local biodiversity, and raises children’s awareness about conservation.

Directions (69 - 73) : Rear range the following six sentences (A), (B), (C), (D), (E) and (F) in the proper sequence to form a meaningful paragraph; then answer the questions given below them.
(A) While the reference point for the former is the state, for the latter it’s society.
(B) India’s’ strategic community’ comprises two distinct circles with little overlap,
(C) Consequently, mainstream strategists have an external orientation to their discourse, concenrating on high politics; the latter is more internal oriented.
(D) Their prescriptions too are under standably poles apart and thus. the state, to which both their commentary is directed, has to play balancer, and ends up being at the receiving end of criticism from both sides.
(E) Out of the two, one can be termed the ‘mainstream’ and the other ‘alternate’.
(F) To further elaborate on the external and internal concept while one is enamored of India’s rise and place in the global order, the other is more sensitive to its vulnerabilities and inadequacies.

Directions (74 - 78) : Read each sentence to find out whether there is any grammatical error or idiomatic error in it. The error, if any, will be in one part of the sentence. The number of that part is the answer. If there is no error, the answer is (5}. (Ignore errors of punctuation, if any).

Directions (79-90) : In the following passage there are blanks, each of which has been numbered. These numbers are printed below the passage and against each, five words are suggested, one of which fits the blank appropriately. Find out the appropriate word in each case.
With the announcement that he would donate Rs. 8,846 crore of. his equity in the company to the philanthropic trust he controls, the founder and chairman of InfoTech giant Wipro Ltd., Azim Premji has set the (79) very high for other mega rich businessmen of the country. The 28th richest man in the world, and India’s third richest, could not have made a better and more sound (80) choice than this. His Azim Premji Foundation is already working in the rural areas of the country to
improve the quality of education and is not in the process of setting up a university for the poor. This (81) will be a welcome addition to the kitty of a sector that has the capability to transform India but is badly handicapped due to the lack, of adequate funding. Other IT majors Infosys, Mind Tree, TCS and HCL also support programmes that support social equity.
At a time when India’s economic footprint on the global stage is rising, the (82) between the different strata of society has also been increasing. This is not a positive development and the underprivileged sections need to be equipped with life skills so that they too can be a part of the growth story. A very basic requirement of this life skills development is to educate them and make them employable. The fact that most of the heads of these IT majors are (83) first generation entrepreneurs (84) that education, more than anything else, is a great leveler.
At the same time, the improved economic conditions will also push up people into the middleclass bracket and make India a much more attractive market. According to Forbes, which keeps a tab on the (85) of the rich and famous, India has 69 billionaires. Yet how many consider (86) as a priority when it comes to spending ? Industry reports indicate that Indians spend about Rs. 30,000 crore a year on charitable (87) and this includes the money spent by companies on their corporate social responsibility programmes. This is not (88) and Indians, especially the corporate czars, have much more ability to give. In a foreword to Corporate Social Responsibility in India, MS Swaminathan correctly says : “Just as good ecology is good business, good philanthropy will also be good business in the (89) term.” Should the country institutiona lise GSR interventions to deal (90) malnutrition, education, health, employment and poverty ? The government would welcome a helping hand, wouldn’t it ?