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Preliminary exam CSAT October 02, 2024

1. Read the following passage and Solution: the items that follow each passage. Your
Solutions to these items should be based on the passages only.

Passage I
The poor especially in market economics need the strength that collectivities offer for
creating more economic, social and political space for themselves, for enhancing their socioeconomic well-being and voice, and as a protection against free market individualism. It has
been argued that a group approach to farming, especially in the form of bottom up
agricultural production collectivities, offers substantial scope for poverty alleviation and
empowering the poor as well as enhancing agricultural productivity. To realize this
potential, however, the groups would need to be voluntary in nature, small in size,
participative in decision making and equitable in work sharing and benefit distribution.
There are many notable examples of such collectivities to be found in varied contexts, such
as in transitions economies. All of them bear witness to the possibility of successful
cooperation under given conditions. And although the gender impact of the family
cooperatives in the transition economies are uncertain, the Indian examples of women-only
groups farming offer considerable potential for benefiting women.

Agricultural collectivities such as group based farming can provide the rural poor?
1. Empowerment
2. Increased agricultural productivity.
3. Safeguard against exploitative markets.
4. Surplus production of agricultural commodities.

1, 2, 3 and 4 1, 2 and 3 only 2 and 4 only 1, 3 and 4 only

General Studies

Political Science and International Relations

Sociology

Some Reference Essays

List of previous year essay topics (1997-2019)

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