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1.

Read the following case and choose the best alternative ::

Chetan Textile Mills (CTM) has initiated various employee welfare schemes for its employees since the day the mill began its operations. Due to its various welfare initiatives and socially responsible business practices, the organisation has developed an impeccable reputation. Majority of the regular workers in Chetan Mills had membership of Chetan Mills Mazdoor Sangh (CMMS), a non political trade union. CMMS had the welfare of its member as its guiding principle. Both CTM and CMMS addressed various worker related issues on a proactive basis. As a result no industrial dispute had been reported from the organization in the recent past.

These days majority of the employers deploy large number of contract labourers in their production processes. In an open economy survival of an organization depends on its competitiveness. In order to become competitive, an organization must be able to reduce cost and have flexibility in employment of resources. Engaging workers through contractors (contract labourer) reduces the overall labour cost by almost 50%. Indian labour legislations make reduction of regular workers almost impossible, but organisations can overcome this limitation by employing contract labourers. Contract labourers neither get the same benefit as regular employees nor do they have any job security. According to various recent surveys, government owned public sector units and other departments are the biggest employers of contract labourers in the country. Contractors, as middle-men, often exploit the contract labourers, and these government organizations have failed to stop the exploitation.

Over time CTM started engaging a large number of contract labourers. At present, more than 35% of CM’s workers (total 5,000 in number) are contract labourers. CMMS leadership was wary about the slow erosion of its support base as regular workers slowly got replaced by contract workers and feared the day when regular workers would become a minority in the mill. So far, CMMS has refused to take contract labourers as members.

Recently, based on rumours, CTM management started to investigate the alleged exploitation of contract labourers by certain contractors. Some contractors felt that such investigations may expose them and reduce their profit margin. They instigated contract labourers to demand for better wages. Some of the contract labourers engaged in material handling and cleaning work started provoking CTM management by adopting violent tactics.

Today’s news-paper reports that police and CTM security guards fired two or three rounds in air to quell the mob. The trouble started while a security guard allegedly slapped one of the contract labourers following a heated argument. Angry labourers set fire to several vehicles parked inside the premises, and to the police jeeps.

[1]

In the wake of recent happenings, what decision is expected from CTM management? From the combinations given below, choose the best sequence of action. (4 marks)

I. Stop the current investigation against the contractors to ensure industrial peace; after all allegations were based on rumours.
II. Continue investigation to expose exploitation and take strong actions against trouble makers.
III. Get in direct touch with all contract labourers through all possible means, communicate the need for current investigation to stop their exploitation, and convince them regarding CTM’s situation due to competition. Also expose those contractors who are creating problems.
IV. Promise strong action against the security guards who are guilty.
V. Increase the wages of contract labourers.

(1) I, V
(2) I, II
(3) II, V
(4) III, IV
(5) III, V

[2]

In the current context, which among the following represent the most suitable reaction from CMMS leadership? (5 marks)

(1) Distance CMMS from the episode and explain that CMMS is not involved in the fiasco through a press conference.
(2) Offer membership to contract labourers, which would put the contract worker at par with the regular workers in CMMS.
(3) Do not offer membership to contract labourers, but represent their interests during negotitation in order to prevent the formation of another union in CTM.
(4) Start another union exclusively for contract labourers of CTM.
(5) Adopt a neutral stand in public, and pass on information related to problem creators to the CTM management.

[3]

Out of the options given below, which one would be the best policy decision by government at the national level? (2 marks)

(1) Asking CM management to pay same wages to both regular and contract workers.
(2) Income tax raids in offices of contractors under investigation.
(3) Setting up a new labour welfare office within CM premises.
(4) Setting up a new committee to make recommendations for changes in labour legislations with an objective to reduce exploitation of contract labourers.
(5) Use entire government machinery to support CTM, which has an impeccable track record.

[4]

The criminals in the surrounding area often took their cue from the situation in the mill, creating law and order problems outside the mill which would later make it difficult for workers to come to mill safely. Given the circumstances, identify the stakeholder that should be the immediate priority of CTM management. (1 mark)

(1) Contract labourers who were allegedly beaten by the security guard of the company.
(2) District administration that is concerned about the spread of violence.
(3) CMMS that prefers an immediate settlement of the issue.
(4) Customers who are concerned about prices and regular supplies.
(5) Contract labourers who are demanding job security and same wages as regular employees.

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2.

Five reviews of the recently published novel, Caught in a Blizzard, are reproduced below. The reviews and the reviewers are identified as indicated by the numbers.

(1) This novel can change your life - for the good, as it has changed mine. It has made me reflect critically about my life.
(2) The novel has become a popular piece of literature, more among the youth than among the older population.
(3) The author uses the plot in her novel to present her philosophy about life in a positive light, rather than relying on the merits of the philosophy per se.
(4) The author is known to be a writer of great power. The intricate and captivating plots in her novels shows that she has a subtle and ingenious mind.
(5) People have been jolted out of their beliefs about love and other different aspects of life after reading this novel.

The options to the questions are same as the reviews/reviewers indicated above.

[1]	There has been criticism about reviewers that they write reviews after having a cursory reading of the book in question. Based on the analysis of the different reviews, which reviewer is most likely to have read the book in greater detail as compared to the other reviewers? (1 mark)

[2]	Out the five reviews given, which one can be most objectively validated? (1 mark)

[3]	Which reviewer eulogises the author rather than critically reviews the novels? (1 mark)

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3.

Answer questions on the basis of the following conversation between two friends, Paradox (P) and Herodox (H)

P: The human body is but the tomb of the soul and the visible world of matter is appearance that must be overcome if we are to know reality. The former is an integral part of “being”, that which can neither come into existence nor cease to exist for it always is. Being is unmoved and undistributed. Motion and disturbance belong to the realm of “becoming”, the changing world of unreality rather than of “being” in which true reality resides. Further, motion & change by belonging to the realm of “becoming” by having no separate existence of their own are logically inconsistent with reality and hence, unworthy of serious study.

H: All things are in a state of perpetual flux. Permanence, and by extension, the concept of “being” is only an illusion. This change and continual transformation, through an often disorderly process of conflict and survival of the fittest, is the underlying principle at work in the universe. It is from this principle that all things come into existence, and forms the basis for the morals and governance patterns that attempt to preserve the social thread of societies. By extension, the study of human activity through the lens of an idealized state of “being” and as a basis for formulating moral codes of conduct is inappropriate at best.

[1]

Which of the following statements could be considered as logically consistent with the views of paradox in the above paragraphs? (3 marks)
i. A fly travelling on a flying arrow perceives it to be at rest. Therefore the flying arrow belongs to the realm of being.
ii. The activities of the day to day life are concerned with the unreal part of human existence and hence, should not be subject to moral standards.
iii. Maintaining a balance among the various constituents of society is essential to the wellbeing and the continuing existence of the soul.
iv. Conflicts and the coming of spontaneous order do not have any underlying causes that are relevant for study as the notion of perpetual flux itself is erroneous.
v. The real is and cannot be non-existent. Further, reality is one and unique.

(1) i only
(2) ii and iv
(3) iv and v
(4) i, ii, and iii
(5) i, iv, and v

[2]

Which of the following statements best represents an implication of Herodox’s ideas? (2 marks)

(1) Religion and other approaches that stress on maintaining and developing the purity of the human soul are subjects that do not merit serious attention.
(2) The setting of moral standards and codes of governance have to be more procedure oriented with a focus on the way humans conduct themselves in their interactions with each other.
(3) Maintaining a balance between various constituents of the society and conflict prevention is essential to the maintenance of social order and a pre-requisite for governance.
(4) As the real world relevant to the existence of human beings is in a state of perpetual flux, attempting to study the same in a systematic manner would be meaningful despite reality itself having changed by then.
(5) There is no notion of time-space-invariant reality. There can be numerous realities both across times and across human cultures and civilizations.

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4.

The motivation of human beings towards their work is a subject matter that is at once a simple as well as an extremely complicated matter. For a long time, economists, sociologists, as well as psychologists believed that a carrot and stick approach, with monetary incentives playing the role of the carrot, would be sufficient to goad employees towards achieving higher levels of performance. However, a number of recent studies and observations, especially dealing with the open source revolution are placing on the table strong evidence suggesting that monetary incentives are only one part of the entire story of motivation through incentives. In a study conducted by a group of researchers at MIT, it was found that monetary incentives work well only in respect of tasks requiring mechanical skills i.e. those tasks not requiring much use of higher level cognitive abilities (such as memorizing or problem solving). In fact their study showed that setting high monetary incentives for tasks requiring cognitive abilities were more likely than not to produce adverse outcomes. Since this result flew straight in the face of the widely accepted body of knowledge on employee motivation, they conducted multiple experiments in different settings and countries to ensure that it was not a one-off result. The findings were the same in all repetitions of the experiment. These studies appear to suggest that monetary incentives need to be provided only to such an extent as to take the minds of employees off the issue of money and focus on other issues that are necessary to get the job done right. For instance, some experiments have shown that greater autonomy to employees and lowered interference from management (and bosses) is successful in driving the performance of employees working in cognitive skill intensive jobs. (2 marks)

Identify the statement(s) that is (are) logically consistent with the content of the paragraph.

i. The carrot-stick approach essentially requires the use of rewards to get more of a desired behaviour whereas penalties lead to increased undesirable behaviour.
ii. Expending time and effort on the design of monetary incentives is a wasteful exercise.
iii. The study by the group of MIT researchers was a flawed exercise from the start.
iv. There appears to be a need to reorient the existing paradigm prevalent in incentive design.
v. During the process of designing incentives, one should clearly delineate activities into those requiring mechanical skills and those requiring higher-level cognitive skills and design with separate sets of incentives and penalties for each.

(1) i and iv
(2) i and v
(3) ii and iii
(4) ii and iv
(5) iv and v

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5.

We are not only afraid of being in the dark; we are also suspicious of being kept in the dark. We often feel that the universe has a hidden order that we cannot quite comprehend. In ancient times, this order was attributed to the gods – omnipotent beings who controlled humans’ fates. Greek myths in particular portrayed humans as pawns in the great games played by the gods. More recently, there are suspicions of global conspiracies. These conspiracies are cited for events that are too important to be random. We no longer describe them as “Acts of God,” so they must be the work of other people - people who are hiding their influence over us, covering up their involvement. They are keeping the rest of us in the dark. Among the events attributed to these people are political assassinations and UFO sightings. Examining these events in minute detail results in a long list of “coincidences” which, in the minds of the conspiracy buffs, are too numerous to be truly random. There must be a central planner who is at the hub of a sinister form of order. No one admits to the conspiracy, so there must be a cover-up. Better to think that we are all being kept in the dark by sinister forces than to admit that there is no order.

[1]

Which of the following statements, if true, would weaken the underlying logic of the above passage? (2 marks)
i. The human need for order is a highly exaggerated notion. It more often than not leads to creation of theories about the universe. The more sensational the theory, the more prevalent it becomes.
ii. The universe is less guided by pure randomness than by well-defined natural processes which are subjected to randomness at varying intervals of time and space.
iii. To strengthen their case for a variety of conspiracies the conspiracy buffs are extrapolating from a very small set of observed “coincidences”.
iv. The persons propounding the different conspiracy theories are usually novelists who use these theories as a backdrop during the
construction of the plots of the novels.
v. The human fear of being kept in the dark is much stronger than the fear of lack of order in the working of the universe.

(1) i, ii, and iii
(2) i, ii and iv
(3) i, iii and iv
(4) i, iv and v
(5) ii, iv and v

[2]

Which of the following statements would, if true, strengthen the case for belief in sinister forces and conspiracies being at work in the above paragraph? (3 marks)

i. Though science has progressed a lot in the last two centuries or so, it is still unable to explain/account for more than 80% of the phenomena in the universe.
ii. There is now the existence of photographic evidence of presence of UFOs and a growing number of parallel studies showing that the human mind can easily be manipulated to do someone else’s will through various events that manipulate the ‘perceived reality’.
iii. The fear of our actions and thoughts being controlled by someone else has intensified with the widespread popularity of the depiction of its gory outcomes by different novelists and movie makers.
iv. There is a strong movement to reintroduce the teachings of the biblical evolutionary process and the presence of God in schools around the world.
v. The Darwinian study of evolution of species, the cornerstone of beliefs in fathomable randomness of the workings of the universe has come under a scathing attack for its inaccurate depiction of the causes and process of evolution.

(1) i and iv
(2) i and v
(3) ii, iii and v
(4) i, ii and v
(5) ii, iii, and iv

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6.

As the information on air warfare tasks and stressors was being gathered and scenarios were being developed, a parallel effort ensued to identify a test bed simulation for air warfare teams. To maintain experimental control, it was determined by the designers that choosing a low physical fidelity simulation was acceptable as long as cognitive fidelity in a team simulation was maintained through subjecting soldiers to pressure situations in a simulated combat setting and attempting to ensure that naturalistic decision making of soldiers would not be compromised. (2 marks)

Which of the following statements, if true, weakens the logic of the above passage?

i. A number of studies have shown that high levels of physical stress lead to a weakening of the decision-making capabilities of human beings.
ii. It has been convincingly demonstrated by various studies that human beings by nature are not designed to adapt to high levels of mental stress.
iii. Numerous studies have shown that simulated environments can be designed to be good substitutes for real-life combat situations.
iv. Studies have shown that simulated exercises for armed forces personnel have tended to induce a systematic type of “correct” and common behaviour among the trainees.
v. Officers, when short-listing soldiers for critical operations, pick up battle-hardened soldiers rather than those who have been trained through simulations.

(1) i and ii
(2) ii and iii
(3) i and iv
(4) i, ii, iv, and v
(5) ii, iii, iv, and v

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