In the following passage ten blanks are left out labeled with letters A, B, C…
2025
In the following passage ten blanks are left out labeled with letters A, B, C and so on. You have to choose a set of words that is correct grammatically and contextually in order to fill the blank.
The Union Cabinet has approved a series of changes in foreign direct investment norms as the government prepares to enter the last lap of its economic policy-setting phase ahead of the 2019 election. Key among these was the decision to _____ 1 _____ up to 49% overseas ownership, including by a foreign airline, in Air India. This comes just a little more than six months after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its nod for a strategic _____ 2 _____ of the airline. The relaxation in ownership norms clears the decks for possible bidders such as the Singapore Airlines-Tata combine and Jet Airways — with its overseas equity and route partners — to make a more detailed commercial _____ 3 _____ of the investment opportunity the state-owned flag carrier presents. For the fiscally constrained government, the _____ 4 _____ couldn’t have come sooner. With the Union Budget due soon and the government _____ 5 _____ short of its budgeted strategic disinvestment goal for the current financial year — as of end-November, only 28% of the targeted ?15, 000 crore had been realised — the hope must be for an _____ 6 _____ timetable for the stake sale. Still, the fulfillment of a necessary condition for a strategic sale doesn’t automatically become sufficient grounds for a successful privatisation. Given the carrier’s accumulated debt of about ?50, 000 crore and the fact that the interest of potential investors is likely to be focused on Air India’s _____ 7 _____ long-haul international routes and its fleet of more than 40 wide-bodied aircraft, disinvestment will be neither easy nor guaranteed. At the very least, the government needs to set a distinct, _____ 8 _____ road map for the sale process. The other reform cleared by the Cabinet was the _____ 9 _____ decision to put 100% FDI in Single Brand Retail Trading under the ‘automatic’ route, accompanied by the long-sought relaxation of mandatory local sourcing norms. This had been a major issue with potential investors including Apple, which had repeatedly urged the government to take a more _____ 10 _____ view given the level of technological advancement incorporated in its products and the difficulty in finding local sources of supply at the requisite scale.
Choose a set of words that is correct grammatically and contextually in order to fill the blank 2
(question no 1 till 10 are linked together)
- A.
seizure, expropriation
- B.
occupancy, vacancy
- C.
disinvestment, divestment
- D.
destitution, denial
Attempted by 3 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept: In a cloze / vocabulary-in-context question, the correct word pair is the one whose core meaning matches the semantic field set up by the surrounding sentence and later confirmed elsewhere in the passage, not just a word that sounds plausible in isolation. When an authority is described acting on a public asset, the key clue is whether the passage frames that action as forceful, spatial, ownership/financial, or economic-status-related, and only the pair matching that frame fits.
Application: Here, blank 2 falls in "the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its nod for a strategic _____ of the airline" about Air India. The same passage later explicitly says the government fell short of its "budgeted strategic disinvestment goal" and repeatedly refers to "the stake sale" and a "strategic sale" leading to "privatisation". This confirms the blank must name the government reducing or selling its ownership stake, so "disinvestment, divestment" is the pair required.
Contrast — why each other pair fails:
"Seizure, expropriation" describe a forceful, compulsory takeover of assets — but the passage describes a voluntary, Cabinet-approved sale process ("gave its nod"), not confiscation.
"Occupancy, vacancy" refer to physical space being occupied or empty, which has nothing to do with a change in corporate ownership stake.
"Destitution, denial" mean extreme poverty and refusal respectively — neither describes an ownership or sale action on the airline.
Hence "disinvestment, divestment" is the only pair consistent with both the immediate sentence and the passage's later confirmations, making it the correct choice for blank 2.