Clat Exam Common Law Admission Test / English Passage 1

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow:

The verdure greenery, serpentine paths of mountains and radiant flowers have been wiped off. Instead there is a sculpture of an injured Naga made of metal scrap—no head, just a helmet and guns instead of hands. This is what a painting by MorlongAo now looks like. Not that the art has changed, but the artist has.
This fifteen-year-old keenly sketched and filled the colours of nature on his canvas until the day when his own life’s canvas was robbed of colour. He got the carcass of his elder brother who had been gunned down by militants, in a gunny bag. They had mistaken him to be a rival faction’s leader. ‘How can you enjoy the beauty of nature when you are always under threat and a witness to mindless violence, death and destruction?’ asked Ao. ‘We need peace for that.’
And not only does Ao want peace, the whole world is in dire need of a peaceful future. How do we work towards this goal? We all have seen world leaders in politics, literature, media and various spheres stand on pulpits and preach about PEACE. However, this is not a very effective method. Moreover it is now cliché`.
There are radical and innovative catalysts to peace which are waiting to be explored, namely media communication and information technology. Before we embark on a voyage to see how peace and these elements intertwine, it is imperative to understand what they mean or deal with. Media communication commonly acts, just as the name suggests, like a medium of interaction between people, states, nations and the entire world. It is the hub for global connections and has evolved greatly since its beginning. It began with newspapers, then the radio and then the television and still going strong, with its new manifestations being evolved everyday.
On the other hand, Information Technology (IT) has also progressed with leaps and bounds. This term became common in the
1970s but the basic concept can be traced very early in history.
Throughout the 20th century, there has been relations between the military and various industries has existed in the development of electronics, computers, and information theory. The military has historically driven such research by providing motivation and funding for innovation in the field of mechanization and computing.
From the revolution in military affairs to hacking, from the virtualization of money to the digital divide, from computer code to genetic code, information technology is transforming international relations. It displays a capacity not only to collapse distance between here and there, near and far, but also between fact and fiction. It played a critical role in the Gulf War and more vividly, in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. It takes many forms in international relations: network wars, computer simulations, smart weapons, sensor arrays, overhead surveillance, live-feeds, media pools, 24/7 news cycles, and other complex combinations of digital information, transmission, and storage. Ranging from organized warfare to terrorist attacks to coercive diplomacy to netwars, Information Technology enables the continuation of violence through info-war. Used by governmental as well as nongovernmental organizations, trans and sub-national actors, and a wide variety of virtual communities,  I. has also demonstrated a capability to prevent, mediate, and resolve conflicts through info-peace.
The IT sector is racing ahead and so are the inventions it churns out each day. There are computerized security systems which are amazingly efficient and reliable. And while you thought information technology and peace had only security in common, the IT sector offers more than just that.
The Information Technology, War and Peace Project, established with support from the Ford Foundation, tracks the effects of
Information Technology on traditional statecraft and new forms of networked global politics. InfoTechWarPeace supports and seeks to extend networks of knowledge and authority that are working to analyze and mediate conflicts enabled by global terror, hate media, information warfare, and other bellicose uses of information technology.
‘A thousand years have passed and a world of peace and justice for all remains an ancient aspiration yet to be fulfilled.
A more humane world needs new thinking, new direction and new institutions. Nations resist yielding privilege or power and individuals cling to entrenched dogmas. Progress takes time and even imperfect compromise always has a price; there can be no instant evolution and no painless revolution...’ is how Benjamin
B. Ferencz summarizes the present scenario and rightly so.