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Communicative English
Unit - II
SPEAKING
Making Short Speeches
Activity
1: (Book Page No- 68)
Prepare a
two-minute welcome address for the following formal events and present it.
1. Sports
Day
Ans: Respected Chief Guest of this evening, Our Principal, Professors, Non-teaching
staff members and students,
I am very happy for giving this opportunity
to welcome you on this wonderful day. This is the 25th Annual sports
day of our college.
I welcome our Chief Guest Dr. Sekar, the Director
to inaugurate the events and take the salute at the march past. On behalf of
our Principal, Professors, Non-teaching staff members and students I extend a
warm welcome to you, sir.
I present my best wishes to students
participating in march past and other events that are soon to commence. Once again,
I welcome everyone here today on behalf of our college. Thank you one and all.
2. Independence
Day Celebrations
Ans: I take it as an honor to stand in front of you to welcome you all
to the celebrations of the 72nd Independence Day.
We celebrate this day every year to pay our
tributes to our brave martyrs and our armed forces. This is a day of pride and
joy for every citizen of the country.
I extend this welcome to our Principal and all
the staff members, students, NCC, NSS and Red cross who are participating in
this function.
3. A
workshop organised by your department
Ans: I am happy to welcome the Resource Person Dr. Ravi and Dr. Vijaya on
the occasion of inauguration of one day national workshop on “Nature, Scripture
and Literature.” The participants have come from different colleges. As Organizer
of the workshop I welcome all to this workshop.
Before we begin this workshop, I would like
to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you who were sincerely committed to
this event to make it success.
4.
Teacher’s day celebrations
Ans: Our respected Principal, loving Teachers and dear Students, warm
greetings to everyone.
It is my privilege to welcome Dr.Sathya who
was come as Chief Guest to participate in the Teachers’ Day function. We have us
our honourable Principal and other special invitees to grace this function. Finally,
once again I welcome you all. Thank you
5. An
intercollegiate competition
Ans: On behalf of our college, I Geetha from 1st year B.A
English Literature, extend a very sincere, warm welcome to all of you present
here for the inter-collegiate competition.
Before we starting this competition, I
would like to thank our guest Prof. Lakshmi, for taking her precious time and
gracing the occasion with her presence.
I want to thank our respected Principal for
accepting to conduct this program. Our lovable Professor have supported us in
many ways to conduct this competition. I am sure, have come well prepared for
this competition.
It is time to start the competition and I am
happy to welcome our Principal to inaugurate the competition. Thank you, everyone.
6. A
guest lecture in your department
Ans: As the Head of the Department of English, I welcome Dr. Sankar who
has come over here to deliver a lecture on “Indian contemporary Writings.” I am
sure the lecture will enlighten us and help us to analyze the trends available
now.
On this occasion I express my greetings to
the Principal and the faculty members who have found time to be present here.
Finally I welcome you one and all.
7. An
award giving ceremony in an international event
Ans: It is a big pleasure to share this evening with all of you to celebrate
an award giving ceremony. I welcome you all to this wonderful event.
I express my sincere thanks to the committee
for such great and excellent event. Owing to his painstaking work, I have the
honour of congratulating the winner of the ‘Best Teacher of the Year award’. I am
sure that every one of you will, in future, contribute to the common well being
of the whole community.
Conclusively, I want to thank all of you for
attending this event.
Activity
2:
Prepare a
two-minute speech to be given on the following informal occasions
1. The
25th Wedding Anniversary of a relation
Ans: I am glad that my parents celebrating their 25th
wedding anniversary on this May 26th at Sri Marriage Hall, Vellore.
They have had a pleasant and smooth sailing all these 25 years. It is really encouraging
and interesting to see this made of each other couple who have achieved the distinction
of living together happily during this long tenure. Be the part of this family,
I am happy to welcome all the invitees who have gathered here to wish this couple.
2. To
your juniors at a Farewell organised by them.
Ans: This is a pleasant and memorable occasion when senior and juniors
mingle together. We thank our juniors for organizing this wonderful celebration
for us. We enjoyed our college days. During this period, we learnt lot of things.
I wish all the juniors to complete your degree and bar a fruitful career ahead.
Thank you all.
3. At the
retirement function of a friend.
Ans: Good evening to all. I am happy to be part of my friends’
retirement function. I am the most suitable to speak about her because both of
us joined this office on the same day. She is quite popular with all of us
because she has served with selfless devotion in this department. I am so much
impressed by her record of service.
At this time when we bid farewell to her, I
pray to the almighty to bless with long life, good health and prosperity. Thank
you.
READING AND WRITING
Writing Opinion Pieces
Read
the following Op-Ed articles: (Book Page No- 72)
1. The
Book in My Hand (by Ramachandra Guha).
https://www.thehindu.com/books/The-book-in-myhand/article16443755.ece
Ans: A weekly column on what well-known personalities are reading and
planning to read. This week, it is historian and writer Ramachandra Guha and
author Anish Sarkar.
Ramachandra Guha
I am currently reading A Life Misspent, a
thinly fictionalised memoir by the great poet Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’,
translated by Satti Khanna. The first few pages are terrific! The last book I
read was Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Cafe, a riveting history of
20th century philosophy that focuses as much on individuals as on ideas. Once I
am done with Nirala, I hope to turn to Nandini Sundar’s The Burning Forest.
Professor Sundar is a brilliant and brave anthropologist, and her book draws on
many years of research in the beautiful and war-torn region of Bastar.
Ramachandra Guha is a historian and
biographer based in Bengaluru. His latest book is ‘Democrats and Dissenters’.
Anish Sarkar
There are two books currently by my
bedside. Both are thrillers, translated into English from the original. The
first is A Midsummer’s Equation by the Japanese author, Keigo Higashino (whose
most famous work is The Devotion of Suspect X). The second is Operation
Napoleon by Arnaldur Indridason, arguably Iceland’s most well-known crime
fiction writer. Higashino’s book is a murder mystery; Indridason’s is a
thriller set in World War II. In both books, the mood and pace build up
gradually, but they are page-turners all the same. For a foreign reader, the
imagery and cultural insights into Japan and Iceland are highly evocative and
fascinating.
Anish Sarkar works
for a consulting firm and is an author. He lives in Mumbai.
2. Coordinates
of Safety.
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/opened/Coordinates-of-safety/article16643102.ece
Ans: Crimes against women rose during 2001-15 despite greater affluence
and an improved sex ratio
If we go by the
National Crime Records Bureau reports, incidence of serious crimes against
women rose from 237 per day in 2001 to 313 per day in 2015. These crimes
include rape, kidnapping and abduction, dowry deaths and cruelty by husbands
and relatives. Minor girls, adolescent and old women are frequently victims of
brutal rapes and murders. Of these crimes, 30 per cent were rapes (including
intent to rape). Higher incidence of crimes during 2001-2015 coupled with low
conviction rate of 21 per cent of cases reported suggests that women are more
vulnerable to serious crimes.
Women’s vulnerability
varies enormously across States. Incidence of serious crimes was as high as 75
per lakh women in Delhi in 2015 as against approximately 5 per lakh women in
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
There are huge gaps
in incidence of crimes between the three worst and the three best States. The
three worst States in 2001 — Delhi, Haryana and Assam — remained largely
unchanged in 2015, with Assam replacing Haryana as the second worst State. The
best performers, however, changed during this period. Nagaland, Meghalaya, and
Sikkim displayed the lowest incidence of crimes in 2001 but the top two were
replaced by Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in 2015. However, across States, the
overall concentration of serious crimes did not change significantly. For
example, the three States (Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra) that
accounted for 37 per cent of the crimes in 2001 were responsible for a slightly
lower share of 34 per cent in 2015.
Factors behind
inter-State variations
Here we focus on two
related questions: (i) Why have crimes against women risen between 2001 and
2015? What are the factors associated with huge inter-State variation in these
crimes in 2015? As answers to these questions lie in the interplay of affluence
of a State, religion, demographics including female/male ratio, employment
opportunities for women, their literacy, rural/urban population ratio, quality
of governance in the State and media exposure, we carried out a detailed
analysis that allows us to assess their individual and joint contributions to
variation of serious crimes over time and across States.
Our analysis reveals
the following effects. A 1 per cent increase in State GDP (per capita) is
associated with a 0.42 per cent reduction in the incidence of serious crimes.
It follows that greater affluence is accompanied by a reduction in such crimes.
If alcoholism and substance abuse are lower among men, or if these addictions
are better treated in more affluent States, sexual or physical assaults on
women are less likely.
Another factor is the
sex imbalance measured as the number of females per 1,000 males. The sex ratio
norm is 950. India’s ratio was below this (944 in 2015). A one per cent
increase in the sex ratio lowers serious crimes against women by 8 per cent.
Indeed, a skewed sex rationmore than undermines the affluence effect. So, if
Delhi and Haryana continue to be the worst States despite being affluent
(relative to, say, Andhra Pradesh), it is largely because of the abysmally low
sex ratio in these two States. While the sex ratio increased in several States
but remained low (Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan), in others
(Bihar, Maharashtra) it remained low and barely changed.
Other influential
factors include female literacy and labour force participation. Female
bargaining power depends on both their literacy and outside employment.
However, the evidence also suggests a backlash in which male spouses —
especially those who are unemployed — assert their superiority by retaliatory
physical and sexual violence. Our analysis points to a favourable joint effect
of female literacy and labour force participation, though the positive individual
effects of female literacy and labour force participation are larger. If
brutality in marriage becomes unbearable, exit options for women who are both
literate and employed become more viable for them. Promoting both jointly is
likely to be more effective in curbing domestic violence against women.
A somewhat surprising
finding is that the higher the rural/urban population, the higher the incidence
of serious crimes against women. A one per cent decline in the rural/urban
population ratio is associated with a reduction of 0.4 per cent in the
incidence of such crimes. Even though such crimes in urban areas have greater
visibility in the media, the grim reality is that women in rural areas are more
vulnerable. Despite likely under-reporting of such crimes, it is revealing that
rural women more often seek remedial action against them. This, of course,
doesn’t imply that they are more likely to succeed.
Although cultural
norms and context take diverse forms — whether, for example, it is a
matriarchal or patriarchal society — religion is one key dimension. Classifying
the populations into Hindus and Muslims, we find that in both groups women are
vulnerable to serious crimes but more so among the former. A one per cent
increase in the share of the Hindus increases such crimes by 1.64 per cent —
double the incidence among Muslims. That a greater frequency of wife-beating
and dowry-related violence among Hindus — in extreme cases “bride burning” —
still persists is worrying.
Exposure to media —
captured through readership of newspapers in English and major Indian languages
— has two effects: one is better reporting of crimes and perhaps, more
importantly, a crime deterrence effect. It is difficult to separate the two and
so the combined effect is that a one per cent increase in readership is
associated with a 1.9 per cent reduction in such crimes. The Delhi gang rape
case of 2012, for example, wouldn’t have sparked a national uproar and led to
the speedy arrest of the perpetrators without sustained media activism.
Governance, a key
determinant
Nobel laureate
Amartya Sen has emphasised that rape and other serious crimes against women are
closely intertwined with inefficient policing and judicial systems, and
callousness of society. So the quality of governance in States is key to
understanding the huge variation in incidence of serious crimes against women.
In a recent but ambitious study this year led by economist Sudipto Mundle, 19
States have been ranked on the basis of a composite indicator of governance in
2001 and 2012. This indicator combines five criteria — infrastructure, social
services, fiscal performance, justice, law and order, and quality of the
legislature. Even if some State rankings are intriguing because of the failure
to take into account rampant political corruption, it is significant that the
best five and the worst five performers remained largely unchanged during
2001-2012. Subject to this caveat and the fact that 2015 is not covered, using
this measure of governance, we find that the incidence of serious crimes
against women declines with better governance.
In conclusion, if the
crimes against women rose despite greater affluence and a slight increase in
the sex ratio during 2001-15, the answer must lie in likely deterioration of
governance and persistence of low sex ratios in certain States. Illustrative
cases include Bihar, Delhi and Maharashtra.
Geetika Dang is an
independent researcher; Vani S. Kulkarni is with the Department of Sociology,
University of Pennsylvania. Raghav Gaiha, who is with the Department of Global
Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health & Global Development
Institute, University of Manchester, also contributed to the article.
