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Welcome to Online English Section with explanation in AffairsCloud.com. Here we are providing some difficult words from editorials , which is important and very helpful for IBPS PO/CLERK/LIC AAO/RRB & SSC CGL EXAM and other exams !!!
The Hindu: On privatisation of Air India: Ready for sale
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 allow 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 disinvestment 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 assessment of the investment opportunity the state-owned flag carrier presents. For the fiscally constrained government, the decision couldn’t have come sooner. With the Union Budget due soon and the government woefully 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 accelerated timetable for the stake sale. Still, the fulfilment 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 focussed on Air India’s lucrative 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 clear, unambiguous road map for the sale process.
The other reform cleared by the Cabinet was the crucial 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 benign view given the level of technological advancement incorporated in its products and the difficulty in finding local sources of supply at the requisite scale. The five-year holiday on the 30% local-sourcing requirement is expected to give companies setting up shop here adequate time to identify, train and even technologically assist in the creation of local supply chains. If this decision was going to be made, it is surprising it was not done in November 2015, when the Centre changed tack and opened up single brand retail to 100% FDI. An early decision would have helped, given the sector’s potential for job-creation and technology upgradation. Still, better late than never.
1.Decks(Verb) : पटाव
Meaning : decorate or adorn brightly or festively.
Synonyms -:up, methodize, organize, police, police up, position, put in good shape, put in order, put to rights, range, rank, regulate, sort, spruce, spruce up, systematize, tidy, whip into shape.
Antonyms : confuse, derange, disarrange, disorder, disorganize, disperse, disturb, mix up, scatter.
Usage : Ingrid was decked out in her Sunday best.
2.Bidders(Noun) : बोलीदाताओं
Meaning : बोलीदाताओं
Synonyms : applicant, aspirant, bidder, claimant, competitor, contender, contestant, dark horse, entrant, favorite son, handshaker, hopeful, job-hunter, nominee, office-seeker, petitioner, possibility, possible choice, pothunter, runner, seeker, solicitant, stumper, successor, suitor, whistle-stopper, write-in.
Antonyms : ally, associate, colleague, helper.
Usage : she was the highest bidder for this rare portrait.
3.Constrained(Verb) : विवश
Meaning : compel or force (someone) to follow a particular course of action.
Synonyms : irrefutable, unaccountable, unprovable.
Antonyms : irrefutable, unaccountable, unprovable.
Usage : children are constrained to work in the way the book dictates.
4.Woefully(Adverb) : बुरी तरह
Meaning : in a manner expressing sorrow or misery.
Synonyms : afflicted, agonized, anguished, appalling, awful, bad, calamitous, catastrophic, cruel, deplorable, disappointing, disastrous, disconsolate, disgraceful, distressing, doleful, dreadful, feeble, gloomy, grieving, grievous, grim, heartbreaking, heartrending, heartsick, hopeless, inadequate, lamentable, lousy, mean, miserable, mournful, paltry, pathetic, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, plaintive, poor, racked, rotten, shocking, sorrowful, sorry, tortured, tragic, unfortunate, unhappy, wretched.
Antonyms : glad, happy, joyful.
Usage : she sighed woefully and walked out.
5.Accelerated(Verb) : त्वरित
Meaning : increase in rate, amount, or extent.
Synonyms : advance, drive, dust, expedite, fire up, forward, further, gun, hammer on, hasten, hurry, impel, lay a patch, lay rubber, make tracks, nail it, open up, peel rubber, precipitate, put on afterburners, put pedal to metal, quicken, railroad, rev, rev up, roll, speed up.
Antonyms : decelerate, defer, hinder, impede, postpone, retard, slow down.
Usage : inflation started to accelerate.
6.Accumulated(Verb) : जमा हुआ
Meaning : gather together or acquire an increasing number or quantity of.
Synonyms : roll up, collect, accumulate, pile up, amass, compile, hoard,store, hive away, lay in, put in, salt away, stack away, stash away.
Antonyms : individual, part, particular.
Usage – investigators have yet to accumulate enough evidence.
7.Unambiguous(Adjective) : स्पष्ट
Meaning : not open to more than one interpretation.
Synonyms : apparent, distinct, explicit, obvious, plain, unblurred, univocal.
Antonyms : ambiguous.
Usage : instructions should be unambiguous
8.Urged(Verb) : आग्रह किया
Meaning : recommend (something) strongly.
Synonyms : advise, counsel, advocate, recommend, suggest; support, endorse, back, champion.
Antonyms : condemned, opposed, prohibited.
Usage : I urge caution in interpreting these results.
9.Benign(Verb) : सौम्य
Meaning : gentle and kind.
Synonyms : amiable, beneficent, benevolent, benignant, complaisant, congenial, favorable, friendly, generous, genial, gentle, good, goodhearted, gracious, kind, liberal, merciful, mild, obliging, sympathetic.
Antonyms : hateful, hostile, hurtful, injurious, malignant, unkind.
Usage : he adopted a benign grandfatherly role.
10.Potential(Adjective) : क्षमता
Meaning : having or showing the capacity to develop into something in the future.
Synonyms : possible, likely, prospective, future, probable, budding, in the making; latent, embryonic, developing, dormant, inherent, unrealized, undeveloped.
Antonyms : helpless, impossible, lacking, unpromising.
Usage : a campaign to woo potential customers.
