Comprehension: (Que No. 1 - 5) Read the following passage carefully and answer…
2025
Comprehension: (Que No. 1 - 5)
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below.
A new report from the World Heath Organisation highlights not only how widespread air pollution is in urban India, but also how deficient air quality monitoring is. The report, which summarised 2016 data for 4,300 cities, ranks 14 Indian cities among the 20 most polluted ones globally. While Delhi comes in at number six, Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya and Patna are ranked ahead of it, by PM 2.5 levels. And yet, Kanpur, Faridabad and several other pollution-choked cities have only one PM 2.5 monitoring station each, while Delhi has several. WHO researchers get around this problem by using alternative data sources such as satellite remote sensing and chemical transport models, along with ground-monitoring stations. The outcome of this exercise makes it clear that air pollution is not a problem of large metropolises alone, even though they have traditionally been the focus of mitigation efforts. Such wide variations in data quality exist across the world. While Europe has the most extensive monitoring network, countries in Africa and the Western Pacific region perform poorly. This means data from these regions are of poor quality, and likely underestimates, resulting in an under-count of the disease burden as well. The report puts the global death toll from air pollution at seven million a year, attributable to illnesses such as lung cancer, pneumonia and ischemic heart disease. In 2016 alone, it says, around 4.2 million people died owing to outdoor air pollution, while 3.8 million people succumbed to dirty cooking fuels such as wood and cow dung. About a third of these deaths occurred in Southeast Asian countries, which include India. Once monitoring improves in these regions, the numbers will likely be revised upwards. There are silver linings, however. The report had words of praise for India's Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme, which has provided 37 million women living below the poverty line with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) connections. Such schemes will also help cut the indoor air pollution that plagues much of rural India, which is not covered in the WHO analysis.
Question:
What has the World Health Organisation report which summarised 2016 data for 4,300 cities bring to light about India?
- A.
It highlights that India's GDP is consistently increasing and if this momentum continues India's economy can double in a decades time
- B.
It highlights the fact that India still has the highest population of people below poverty line
- C.
It shows how severe the pollution levels are in India and how deficient the systems are to monitor it
- D.
It shows Indian Government's authoritarian decisions are hampering its image and people may vote against them in 2019 elections
Attempted by 4 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Key sentence from the passage: "A new report from the World Health Organisation highlights not only how widespread air pollution is in urban India, but also how deficient air quality monitoring is."
Interpretation: The report makes two points — serious pollution levels across many Indian cities and inadequate systems to monitor air quality.
Evidence: WHO ranked 14 Indian cities among the 20 most polluted globally and lists specific cities with high PM2.5 levels (for example, Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya, Patna, and Delhi).
Evidence: Several heavily polluted cities have only one PM2.5 monitoring station, showing monitoring is deficient.
Evidence: WHO used satellite data and models to compensate for sparse ground monitoring, confirming widespread pollution beyond just large metropolises.
Conclusion: The correct answer is the statement that the report shows how severe pollution levels are in India and how deficient the systems are to monitor it.