List of top Questions asked in SNAP- 2007

Instructions [72-74]: Read the edited excerpt of an article by Nelson Vinod Moses and answer the question in this context.

A successful non-resident Indian employed in the United States returns to a backward Indian village and transforms the lives of the villagers. Sounds familiar? At 31, Ashwin Naik is pacing through the path Shah Rukh Khan traced in his off-bear Bollywood movie, Swades. Naik had just quit his cushy job in a genomics firm in the US to join MIT Sloan School of Business. With a month in hand, he headed home a travelled through the remote areas of Bagalkot district in Karnataka. The woeful social conditions he saw moved him. Naik chucked the MBA course and in six months set up Vaatsalya Healthcare, a rural healthcare delivery system. In February 2005, Vaatsalya's first hospital opened in Hubli. Two more centres were opened in Gadag and Karwar to offer specialist services of surgeons and facilities such as physiotherapy for children suffering from cerebral palsy. "We introduced paediatric surgery for infants below six months," says Naik. "Else, patients would have to be taken to distant cities of Hubli or Bangalore." Naik plans 100 more units in five states in the next three years. Mere charity by an affluent, middle-class professional? Far from it. Vaatsalya is one among rapidly spreading 'for profit' social enterprises that serve the poor and bring in profit. Mumbai-based Ziqitza, an imbalance services company, is another. It never refuses a patient for money, and charges Rs. 50 to 200. Done fleetingly in India and elsewhere till now, entrepreneurial minds with a social conscience are methodically creating such models at a greater pace. "There has been a boom in the past two years," says Varun Sahni, country director of Acumen Fund, a US based social fund that invests in companies that target low income communities. "Currently, there are about 1,000 in India." The timing seems perfect. There is a wide market acceptance and funding has been coming in easily. These enterprises work across a swathe of areas including healthcare, education, rural energy, agriculture, arts and crafts, banking and more. 'For profit' entrepreneurs are obsessed with social and environmental impact in addition to the financial returns. Since they are answerable to the investors, they try expanding the business rapidly. SKS Microfinance, for instance, started in 1998 and has now over 900,000 customers, 440 branches and an outstanding loan disbursement of over Rs. 452 crores as of August 2007.

Identify the appropriate business model of the kind of enterprise described by the author.

Instructions: Read the following passage and answer the question based on it.

TRIPs agreement provides a comprehensive set of global trade rules for the protection of copyright, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, semiconductor layout designs, and geographical indications, that apply to all member countries irrespective of their levels of development, natural and human endowments and history. Every member country has been asked by the WTO to amend its national patent law to conform to that universal globalized format for legislation relating to pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food, alloys, etc. Under Article 65, the developed countries have been asked to change their laws within another five years, and the less developed countries within an additional five years. The least developed countries have been asked to make those changes by 2005 AD.

This attempt at global standardisation and uniformity by way of the TRIPs agreement is in conflict with the main thrust of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that set out the conditions for sustainable development. These two reveal two contrasting types of international approaches and norms. While the 1992 Earth Summit and the 1993 Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) focused on 'diversity' as being fundamental to sustain life and development, TRIPs and WTO are pushing for 'conformity' to international standardized norms on patents, services, labour, investment and what not, irrespective of their history, ecology, level of economic development, etc. But despite their diametrically opposed viewpoints, 170 countries signed CBD upholding the need for diversity, and 50 countries signed the TRIPs agreement in 1994 claiming the urgency of uniformity, with a very large element of common signatories (130) in both.

The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), in its Article 16.5, specifically asserts that intellectual property rights must not be in conflict with conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, a provision that has been totally ignored by those who composed the TRIPs agreement. While in the case of agriculture the higher yield of patented products induces farmers to switch from a more varied production pattern, the resulting narrowing of the genetic base makes the economy and society more vulnerable to plant disease and epidemics. It is true that the move towards cultivation of a smaller number of higher yielding varieties and the uniform spread of the same variety over a large space predates the present debate on patents, particularly since the introduction of green revolution technology in the mid-sixties, but there can be no doubt that the latter has brought about a qualitative change in the scenario and has created the possibility of a vast quantitative change too in that direction. So far no attempt has been made to reconcile the two conflicting approaches of CBD and TRIPs. If diversity is so important for sustaining life, how can WTO demand conformity to standardised global formats?

As per the TRIPs agreement, not much differentiation is made between a developed country such as the USA and an undeveloped country such as Sudan. This statement is

Instructions: Read the following passage and answer the question based on it.

TRIPs agreement provides a comprehensive set of global trade rules for the protection of copyright, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, semiconductor layout designs, and geographical indications, that apply to all member countries irrespective of their levels of development, natural and human endowments and history. Every member country has been asked by the WTO to amend its national patent law to conform to that universal globalized format for legislation relating to pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food, alloys, etc. Under Article 65, the developed countries have been asked to change their laws within another five years, and the less developed countries within an additional five years. The least developed countries have been asked to make those changes by 2005 AD.

This attempt at global standardisation and uniformity by way of the TRIPs agreement is in conflict with the main thrust of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that set out the conditions for sustainable development. These two reveal two contrasting types of international approaches and norms. While the 1992 Earth Summit and the 1993 Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) focused on 'diversity' as being fundamental to sustain life and development, TRIPs and WTO are pushing for 'conformity' to international standardized norms on patents, services, labour, investment and what not, irrespective of their history, ecology, level of economic development, etc. But despite their diametrically opposed viewpoints, 170 countries signed CBD upholding the need for diversity, and 50 countries signed the TRIPs agreement in 1994 claiming the urgency of uniformity, with a very large element of common signatories (130) in both.

The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), in its Article 16.5, specifically asserts that intellectual property rights must not be in conflict with conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, a provision that has been totally ignored by those who composed the TRIPs agreement. While in the case of agriculture the higher yield of patented products induces farmers to switch from a more varied production pattern, the resulting narrowing of the genetic base makes the economy and society more vulnerable to plant disease and epidemics. It is true that the move towards cultivation of a smaller number of higher yielding varieties and the uniform spread of the same variety over a large space predates the present debate on patents, particularly since the introduction of green revolution technology in the mid-sixties, but there can be no doubt that the latter has brought about a qualitative change in the scenario and has created the possibility of a vast quantitative change too in that direction. So far no attempt has been made to reconcile the two conflicting approaches of CBD and TRIPs. If diversity is so important for sustaining life, how can WTO demand conformity to standardised global formats?

According to the author, a higher-yield seed variety is not always welcome as it also ultimately leads to

Instructions: Read the following passage and answer the question based on it.

TRIPs agreement provides a comprehensive set of global trade rules for the protection of copyright, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, semiconductor layout designs, and geographical indications, that apply to all member countries irrespective of their levels of development, natural and human endowments and history. Every member country has been asked by the WTO to amend its national patent law to conform to that universal globalized format for legislation relating to pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food, alloys, etc. Under Article 65, the developed countries have been asked to change their laws within another five years, and the less developed countries within an additional five years. The least developed countries have been asked to make those changes by 2005 AD.

This attempt at global standardisation and uniformity by way of the TRIPs agreement is in conflict with the main thrust of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that set out the conditions for sustainable development. These two reveal two contrasting types of international approaches and norms. While the 1992 Earth Summit and the 1993 Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) focused on 'diversity' as being fundamental to sustain life and development, TRIPs and WTO are pushing for 'conformity' to international standardized norms on patents, services, labour, investment and what not, irrespective of their history, ecology, level of economic development, etc. But despite their diametrically opposed viewpoints, 170 countries signed CBD upholding the need for diversity, and 50 countries signed the TRIPs agreement in 1994 claiming the urgency of uniformity, with a very large element of common signatories (130) in both.

The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), in its Article 16.5, specifically asserts that intellectual property rights must not be in conflict with conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, a provision that has been totally ignored by those who composed the TRIPs agreement. While in the case of agriculture the higher yield of patented products induces farmers to switch from a more varied production pattern, the resulting narrowing of the genetic base makes the economy and society more vulnerable to plant disease and epidemics. It is true that the move towards cultivation of a smaller number of higher yielding varieties and the uniform spread of the same variety over a large space predates the present debate on patents, particularly since the introduction of green revolution technology in the mid-sixties, but there can be no doubt that the latter has brought about a qualitative change in the scenario and has created the possibility of a vast quantitative change too in that direction. So far no attempt has been made to reconcile the two conflicting approaches of CBD and TRIPs. If diversity is so important for sustaining life, how can WTO demand conformity to standardised global formats?

Which of the following has been said by the author in the passage?

Instructions: Read the following passage and answer the question based on it.

TRIPs agreement provides a comprehensive set of global trade rules for the protection of copyright, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, semiconductor layout designs, and geographical indications, that apply to all member countries irrespective of their levels of development, natural and human endowments and history. Every member country has been asked by the WTO to amend its national patent law to conform to that universal globalized format for legislation relating to pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food, alloys, etc. Under Article 65, the developed countries have been asked to change their laws within another five years, and the less developed countries within an additional five years. The least developed countries have been asked to make those changes by 2005 AD.

This attempt at global standardisation and uniformity by way of the TRIPs agreement is in conflict with the main thrust of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that set out the conditions for sustainable development. These two reveal two contrasting types of international approaches and norms. While the 1992 Earth Summit and the 1993 Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) focused on 'diversity' as being fundamental to sustain life and development, TRIPs and WTO are pushing for 'conformity' to international standardized norms on patents, services, labour, investment and what not, irrespective of their history, ecology, level of economic development, etc. But despite their diametrically opposed viewpoints, 170 countries signed CBD upholding the need for diversity, and 50 countries signed the TRIPs agreement in 1994 claiming the urgency of uniformity, with a very large element of common signatories (130) in both.

The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), in its Article 16.5, specifically asserts that intellectual property rights must not be in conflict with conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, a provision that has been totally ignored by those who composed the TRIPs agreement. While in the case of agriculture the higher yield of patented products induces farmers to switch from a more varied production pattern, the resulting narrowing of the genetic base makes the economy and society more vulnerable to plant disease and epidemics. It is true that the move towards cultivation of a smaller number of higher yielding varieties and the uniform spread of the same variety over a large space predates the present debate on patents, particularly since the introduction of green revolution technology in the mid-sixties, but there can be no doubt that the latter has brought about a qualitative change in the scenario and has created the possibility of a vast quantitative change too in that direction. So far no attempt has been made to reconcile the two conflicting approaches of CBD and TRIPs. If diversity is so important for sustaining life, how can WTO demand conformity to standardised global formats?

Out of the countries that signed CBD, the percentage of those that signed the TRIPs also, is