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181.
India has gone through the same phases of marketing development as the more advanced countries like USA, UK and Germany. Identifying and analysing the concepts dominating these phases would throw some light on the future trends. Tracing India’s marketing history based upon all its functions would be a very lengthy process. For our purpose it would suffice to examine it on the basis of today’s most important parameter of marketing: development and augmentation of brand hegemony. In the 1930s, the main motivation was acquisition of a new product, with the emphasis on the utilization aspect. Today the decision is influenced by the desire for graduating to a superior product offering more comfort, status and style with emphasis on the symbolic value. The decade of the 1940s was particularly noteworthy for the start-up of local manufacture of many brands, mainly in the non-durable consumer goods category. The market divided itself into three general groups. The first comprising imported brands purchased by the ruling British and the wealthy, urban Indian who was educated and imitating the western lifestyles. The second represented locally manufactured brands mainly produced and distributed by foreign companies. These were designed in terms of quality and size to become affordable to the fairly large middle and lower middle class which existed in India even 50 years ago. The third group consisted of goods produced by small-scale manufacturers catering to the petty needs of the country’s very large population of poor. The decade of the 1950s more or less followed the pattern of the 1940s and gave way to considerable dynamism in the next two decades.
The weakening social conservatism in the 1950s, began to roll back rapidly in the face of new ideas, and changed the temper of society from meek acceptance of whatever was available to a penchant for change. By the mid-1960s, there were clear manifestations of change in several parts of society. Table fans were replaced by ceiling fans, desert coolers with air-conditioners, bicycles with scooters, bidis with cigarettes. This changing panorama inspired marketers to launch new brands to plug the new slots that had opened up. In fact, this marked the beginning of Indian society changing to a high-consuming system from one of abstinence. Several leading brands of today such as Wills, FT, Liril, Thums up, Luna, Bajaj Scooter, Nescafe, Classic Kings, Postman and Economic Times were begotten in this era. The success graph of new entries in the 1960s and 1970s somehow petered out in the decade of the 80s. Possibly, the commanding influence of market research in the 1980s side-tracked the marketers, and they stopped hearing the rumblings of the marketplace.
A recent review of the status of new brands in the soap and cosmetics industry also lamented the absence of trend-setting brands and emphasised the need for the right mix of flavour, fragrance, colour and pack design to avoid mishaps. While selection of the right mix is important, it falls short of getting the consumer imagination often on account of the difficulty in measuring the attribute of ‘representational value’. The concept of representational value is actually quite simple. It only needs understanding of the moving socio-economic pattern to discern the emerging trend in any market segment and converting it into a symbolic form for building the brand. This process is particularly relevant during a period of high societal change, as the country is experiencing now. Our society will offer many challenging opportunities to the marketing strategist, with an ear close to the ground, to cater to the brand-crazy consumerist society.[1] The author is most likely to agree with the statement that
1. the past three decades have seen a swift development on the direct marketing front.
2. the future’s trend-setters need to visualize mass appeal and accordingly build the brand.
3. several leading brands lost their hold in the past six years.
4. during the 1950s, market was in total complacent situation.[2] All the following statements are correct except
1. in comparison to the 1930s, today the stress is on superior quality and comfort.
2. before Independence British constituted the elite brand users.
3. the identification of totalitarian consumer society was dominant in 1940s.
4. non-durable consumer goods were the 1940s benchmark.[3] On the basis of the passage, we can say representational value
1. is not difficult to tab.
2. is what escapes the consumer’s imagination.
3. is the reward for the marketer who is aware of the changing trends.
4. is the major factor responsible for the brand catching the consumers’ fancy.asked in MAT
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182.
Recently released economic data for the first quarter of the fiscal year give room for optimism. According to the preliminary estimates of the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), the Gross Domestic Product grew by 7.4 per cent during April-June this year compared with 5.3 per cent during the same period last year. The performance is particularly noteworthy as all the three sectors – agriculture, industry and services – have grown on a year-on-year basis. Industrial growth, underpinned by a strong performance of the manufacturing sector, registered a rise of 6.9 per cent while the buoyant services sector notched up an impressive 9.5 per cent growth (compared with 7.4 per cent last year). In a statistical sense the growth in agriculture at 3.4 per cent seems modest but, coming on top of a 0.1 per cent increase during April-June last year, it has boosted the overall growth figures significantly. Farm output will be keenly watched during the rest of the year to see whether the first quarter GDP growth rate can be sustained. The key question is the difference the less-than-satisfactory southwest monsoon will make to the economic growth. While the rabi crop is expected to be normal, the kharif crop could well see a shortfall because of the delayed and uneven rain in many parts of the country. There is a need to place the statistics relating to growth in a fresh, forward-looking perspective. The 7.4 per cent growth of the first quarter follows a string of higher rates registered over three successive quarters. In 2003-04, after a slow start, economic growth picked up, recording increases of 8.6 per cent, 10.5 per cent, and 8.2 per cent during the second, third, and fourth quarters. That also means that growth estimates for the rest of this year will have to contend with a “high base effect” and will consequently be less impressive than they have been for the first quarter. Such distortions are intrinsic to year-on-year comparisons.
Last year, agriculture was credited with an impressive 9.1 per cent growth when it was merely recovering from the prolonged drought during the previous year (2002-2003), when its growth was negative. One has therefore to look beyond the CSO statistics to arrive at a realistic estimate of GDP growth for the whole year. The official claim is that the economy will grow by 6.5 to 7 per cent over the full year, despite the oil shock and the resurgent inflation, but that projection has to be tempered with caution as global oil prices are still ruling at record highs. Even though consumers have been provided a cushion, thanks to the Government agreeing to forsake some taxes and oil companies a part of their profits, there is no running away from the fact that the economy will eventually bear the burden. On the positive side, there are a number of corroborative factors that lend credence to the official view. The buoyancy in manufacturing and services is likely to be sustained. Credit offtake from banks, a key indicator of industrial recovery, is reportedly running at five times last year’s level. Foreign institutional investors have started pumping money again into the Indian stock markets, driving the Sensex up to a five-month high. According the recent balance of payment statistics, the merchandise trade deficit during April-June was $ 6.3 billion, the highest for any quarter. The fact that non-oil imports have also surged could be another indication of strong economic growth.[1] Which one of the following statements is not supported by the contents of the passage?
1. Manufacturing sector strongly influenced the industrial segment growth which in turn contributed to the economic growth.
2. As the agricultural growth in the first quarter of the fiscal year is only 3.4 percent, its quantitative influence in absolute terms has not been significant.
3. The fact that the agricultural growth during 2000-2003 was negative, has influenced the recording of impressive growth during 2002-2003.
4. The first quarter of the current fiscal year has recorded the highest merchandise trade deficit for any quarter.[2] The corroborative factors which give credibility to the official claim that economic growth will be 6.5 – 7 percent over the year is/are
1. Indian stock market started getting foreign institutional investments.
2. The uptrend in manufacturing and services sectors will be sustained.
3. Credit offtake from the banks has increased.
4. All the above.asked in MAT
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183.
Had the India Meteorological Department been a bookmaker, it would have lost a packet. In April it predicted that rainfall in this year’s southwest monsoon from June 1 to September 30 would be normal, in fact, 100 per cent of the long-term average. The chances that the rainfall would be less than 90 per cent of the average were set at just 4 per cent. In June, it raised the stakes further, postulating the odds of such a reduction in rainfall at a mere 3 per cent. As it turns out, the monsoon has performed 13 per cent below normal. For the second time in three years the Department has got it strikingly wrong, not having foreseen the drought of 2002 when the deficiency was 19 per cent. This time the Department can cite some extenuating aberrations in the monsoon schedule: the monsoon actually broke on May 18 over Kerala, 12 days ahead of schedule, and whatever rain came in May has not been taken into the southwest monsoon folder. Further, the monsoon has not yet closed its books, with rain falling fairly heavily in many parts of the country in the first week of October. Some dribbles of comfort, may be, for farmers in some states but none for the Department that will need to get back to questioning the validity of the 10 parameter regression model it uses to\ predict monsoon performance. Or was it that its interpretation of the data went awry?
Data on the sea surface temperatures in the Tropical Pacific Ocean known as the Nino 3.4 region from January to June (one of the 10 parameters on which the forecast is built) had turned out to be “unfavourable” but the department chose to belittle their effect. It is not just in the overall number that the forecast was way off target; it went seriously wrong in projecting the distribution of rainfall over the country. Northwest India was projected to get 103 per cent of its long-term average rainfall; it got barely 80 per cent. Northeast India was the only region with the right number. When forecasts go so wayward, it raises the question whether they provide any value to India’s agriculture that depends so vitally on the performance of the monsoon. It was the great Indian drought of 1877 that prompted the Department to issue its first seasonal monsoon forecast in 1884. Yet 120 years later and despite extensive multinational research, monsoon predictive capabilities are still too green uncertain, and bereft of much practical value at least to individual farmers. Long term predictions for the country as a whole might offer some inputs for policy making at Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi and for punters on Dalal Street. But they have never meant anything to farmers who have relied on gut instinct, tradition, and soothsayers to tell them how the seasonal rains would turn out. It must be conceded that there has been more reliability and practicality about the Department’s short-term forecasts in recent times. The National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, which provides countrywide regional forecasts three to five days ahead, has claimed better results. “Farmers who follow our advisories earn about twice as much profit as those who do not,” is one such claim. Reliable wind and cloud forecasts three days ahead can no doubt help farmers reduce costs of irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticide application. To be fully effective for precision farming, these forecasts must be valid at the local village level. Given the complexity of the monsoon and our limited understanding of it, none will bet on such a service being available in the near future.[1] According to the author of the passage, which one of the following statements is not correct?
1. Validity of regression model for predicting weather is questionable.
2. The distribution of rainfall over the country was not projected correctly.
3. Farmers have not derived much practical value out of research on monsoon.
4. The short-term forecast over three to five days ahead has been as unreliable as the long-term forecast[2] “Long term prediction for the country as a whole might offer some inputs for policy making at Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi and for punters on Dalal Street.” The term ‘policy’ in this context refers to the policy of
1. Meteorological Department.
2. Department of Science and Technology.
3. Ministry of Agriculture.
4. Ministry of Food and Civil Supplies.asked in MAT
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184.
Read the passages carefully to answer the questions that follow each passage.
The Indian cooperative sector is celebrating its centenary this year. In the process of completing a century of its presence, this sector has built up a network, which is considered the world’s largest. More than five lakh individual cooperative organisations and over 25 crore members make it numerically the largest movement in the world. A paid up capital base of more than 50,000 crore rupees, presence in practically all walks of life and covering almost all villages of the country, makes it economically and socially the most significant set of organisations. But then, the problems too are plenty. The general perception is that the cooperative sector is weak and inactive. Barring exceptions, the sector seems to be ill-equipped to face the challenge of neo-liberal thrust. Even after a hundred years, most cooperatives are dependant on government patronage both for their business and capital requirements. The future does not look bright if some structural changes are not effected to rejuvenate the sector and the movement as a whole. There are two very important vices that we have inherited and two essential values we have failed to inculcate, which have marred the ‘cooperative character’ in our setting. The first of the vices is the bureaucratization and government control. When the colonial rulers officially brought the cooperatives to India, they introduced the omnipotent Registrar, a position specially created by the government in order to have the final controlling rights with it and not to allow the cooperative sector to blossom as a people’s movement. The government of free India, while championing the cause of cooperatives, not only retained this key position but also further added a long hierarchy of bureaucratic power centres. In fact, a government directed cooperative movement is in itself a contradiction and against the “logic of cooperative movement.” The second vice, which we developed by ourselves, is that the politicians are cooperators by default. They are in cooperatives either because they want to move up in the political hierarchy (cooperatives as breeding grounds) or because they have temporarily failed to make headway in that route (cooperatives as rehabilitation centres). There is no harm in cooperators becoming politicians. In fact it would be a welcome development. But the other way round, which is the practice today, would kill the movement.
Our cooperative sector has clearly failed to inculcate two of the very essential cooperative values. The first is that of self-help. Self-help was envisaged as a basic tenet of cooperatives. Both Robert Owen and Charles Fourier had seen cooperation as a process of creating ‘self-help communities’. In its very genesis the movement was opposed to Market and State, since both had failed to protect the interest of the common man. Both are, in that sense, forces which the cooperators resist. Drawing support from such sources is essentially a modern day political compromise, and it would be against the cooperative ideology. We need to understand that governments both in centrally planned economies and free market domains were too eager and willing to provide financial and other support to cooperatives and the sector fell prey to this temptation. A cooperative endeavour should necessarily depend on its own resources, energy and time, however small it could turn out to be. Its growth and expansion should be evolutionary. The second very important missing value is the member centrality. Cooperatives by their very nature are inward looking organisations. They are meant to serve the member community unlike the outward looking organisations such as the corporate which sells to any one so long as there is profit. The focus of all activities of cooperatives should have been members. Business activities are to be developed based on member needs, policies are to be designed according to member views and administration is to be carried out through member participation. Indian cooperatives generally do not stick to this value. It is increasingly felt that the pressures of globalisation will have to be addressed to a large extent through selfhelp initiatives. The talk of social capital as an input for development and self-help groups as instruments of development is everywhere. This reinforces the need for cooperative endeavours. There is a definite credibility crisis for the cooperative sector. The process of withdrawal of the state from certain service areas should have in the ordinary course opened up the doors for cooperativisation instead of privatisation. But no one believes that the cooperative sector is competent enough to accept this challenge. Unless the sector moves away from the clutches of government control and comes out with norms for restraining politicians from making use of the sector as a ladder for their personal benefits, the movement is sure to slip down further. It is inevitable that a good number of our cooperative enterprises will disappear in the coming years, since they are not strong enough to stand the trail of time. However, inculcating the values of self-help and member centrality can give rise to cooperatives, which are not just ‘enterprises’ but instruments of creating ‘cooperative communities’. The cooperative ideology is indeed too precious and realistic to discard. Hard introspection and commitment to further the cause is needed during the centenary celebrations.[1] According to the passage which one of the following statements is not true?
1. The Indian cooperative sector is equipped well to face the challenges of neo-liberal business environment.
2. A definite credibility crisis overshadows the cooperative sector.
3. Cooperators oppose the forces of Market and State.
4. It would be a welcome development if cooperators become politicians.[2] What are the reasons behind the deterioration in cooperative movement?
1. Government control on cooperative sector.
2. Politician’s ambition to use cooperative movements for individual gain.
3. Both (1) and (2).
4. None of these.[3] Which is the significant vice that plagues the cooperative system?
1. Bureaucratization
2. Government control
3. Politicians in cooperative movement
4. All the above[4] Which is/are the essential value(s) that the cooperative sector failed to develop?
1. Self help
2. Focus on members
3. Resources
4. Both (1) and (2)asked in MAT
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185.
Regulatory commissions must be (_Q1_) but also be accountable to some authority. The packing of regulatory commissions with retired or retiring government employees has skewed membership to (_Q2_) men with administrative experience but (_Q3_) management skills. Nor (_Q4_) there a managerial mindset in state electricity enterprises. Governments have done nothing to correct this.
The electricity system in India is today a heavy (_Q5_) on society, on state government finances and an (_Q6_) to growth and social justice. (_Q7_) of perennial debates and reversals, the government must keep reiterating policies and aggressively (_Q8_) them. Electricity Regulatory Commissions (ERCs) along with central and state governments must (_Q9_) support and implement the Act, effectively monitor the policies, (_Q10_) stronger incentives and penalties to make State Electricity Boards (SEBs) more enterprising and professional.[1] Q1).
(1) formed (2) established (3) independent (4) subsidiary (5) functioning[2] Q2).
(1) older (2) young (3) mature (4) sober (5) sycophant
[3] Q3).
(1) adequate (2) essential (3) lacked (4) no (5) exceptional
[4] Q4).
(1) has (2) is (3) was (4) merely (5) only
[5] Q5).
(1) loss (2) weight (3) expenditure (4) disadvantage (5) burden
[6] Q6).
(1) obstacle (2) incentive (3) empowerment (4) initiative (5) overture
[7] Q7).
(1) Because (2) in spite (3) Instead (4) Worried (5) Tired
[8] Q8).
(1) revising (2) implementing (3) using (4) devising (5) utilizing
[9] Q9).
(1) reluctantly (2) intermittently (3) obviously (4) aggressively (5) sparingly
[10] Q10).
(1) eradicate (2) subsidize (3) prevent (4) inculcate (5) introduce
asked in CET(MH)
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186.