Controlling pollution is one of the most widely discussed topics in our country with (1) verbosity being inversely proportional to the actual work done. We are still not alive to the evil consequences of pollution even when the (2) pristine white Taj Mahal has turned brown; Ganga and Yamuna, the eternal rivers, have become overfed drains; and clean air has become a sweet memory. WHO has listed fourteen Indian cities, including Delhi, as the most polluted cities in the world, in terms of air quality. So far, the (3) damning WHO report has (4) elicited no outrage or even an official response. It appears that somehow, we have rationalized pollution as a necessary (5) concomitant of progress despite the fact that unlike India, the cities and countryside of all developed countries are spotlessly clean. Delhi’s sixth rank in the list of most polluted cities indicates that something is seriously wrong with our efforts to control pollution. Around Diwali last year, extremely poor air quality brought life to a (6) standstill in North India. The crisis took up a lot of media space and prompted a slanging match between various State Governments and the Central Government but once rain washed away the polluted air, even the (7) histrionics subsided. Despite such all-pervading pollution Delhi has been listed as one of India’s cleanest cities on the Swachch Bharat website.
Unfortunately, the Government is yet to articulate a (8) holistic approach to tackle pollution. We have a Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change which has pollution control as one of its many objectives. The Swachch Bharat Abhiyan, a successor to Total Sanitation Campaign (1999) and Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (2012), focuses almost exclusively on eliminating open defecation.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board, Yamuna water in Delhi is fit only for recreation and industrial cooling. More than Rs 6,500 crore have been spent to clean the Yamuna in the last twenty years, but the river is still (9) clogged with water hyacinth and boasts of no marine life. The story of the Ganga is worse. The holy river, which provides water to about 50 crore people in 11 states, is now the fifth-most polluted river in the world with stretches of over six hundred kilometres being ecologically dead zones. Even the British had signed the Ganges Agreement on 19 December 1916, the ‘Aviral Ganga Samjhauta Divas’. Namami Gange project has a budget outlay of Rs. 20,000 crores for the next five years which is in addition to approximately Rs. 4000 crores spent on this task between 1985 and 2014. For one, despite (10) deterrent provisions in various environment protection laws, the Government believes more in sermonizing than catching and punishing wrongdoers.
1. VERBOSITY (noun) शब्दाडंबर
Meaning: the fact or quality of using more words than needed; wordiness.
Synonyms: loquacity, garrulity, talkativeness, volubility, babbling, blathering, waffling, prattling, jabbering, gushing, verbiage, prolixity, periphrasis, tautology, circumlocution, convolution, redundancy; diffuseness, discursiveness, digressiveness, multiloquence, pleonasm.
Antonyms: brevity, briefness, compactness, conciseness, concision, crispness, pithiness, succinctness, terseness.
2. PRISTINE (adjective) आरम्भिक
Meaning: clean and fresh as if new; spotless.
Synonyms: immaculate, perfect, spotless, flawless, clean, fresh, new, pure, unused, unmarked, unblemished, untarnished, untouched, unsullied, undefiled.
Antonyms: mucky, grubby, spoiled, sullied, vandalized, damaged, jejune, marred, dingy, besmirched, corroded.
3. DAMNING (adjective) घातक
Meaning: (of a circumstance or piece of evidence) strongly suggesting guilt or error.
Synonyms: incriminating, condemning, damnatory, damaging, derogatory, catastrophic, destructive, disastrous, fatal, fateful, ruinous, unfortunate.
Antonyms: auspicious, bright, encouraging, fair, golden, heartening, hopeful, optimistic, promising, propitious, upbeat.
4. ELICITED (verb) प्रकाश में लाना
Meaning: evoke or draw out (a reaction, answer, or fact) from someone.
Synonyms: obtain, extract, evoke, induce, call forth, engender, spark off, trigger, kindle; extort, exact, wrest, derive.
Antonyms: disregard, forget, ignore, miss, neglect, overlook, overpass, pass over.
5. CONCOMITANT (noun) आनुषंगिक
Meaning: a phenomenon that naturally accompanies or follows something.
Synonyms: accompaniment, attendant, companion, corollary, accessory, adjunct, appendage
complement, supplement, counterpart.
Antonyms: unattended, irrelevant, unaided, unbound, unattached, independent, unrelated.
6. STANDSTILL (noun) निस्तब्धता
Meaning: a situation or condition in which there is no movement or activity at all.
Synonyms: deadlock, gridlock, halt, impasse, logjam, stalemate, standoff, plight, predicament, quagmire.
Antonyms: progress, synergy, generate, continuity, action, evolve, expedite, prompt.
7. HISTRIONIC (noun) नाटकीय
Meaning: melodramatic behavior designed to attract attention.
Synonyms: drama, theatrics, theatricality, tantrums, affectation, staginess, artificiality, unnaturalness, exaggerated, farcical.
Antonyms: crude, inherent, restrained, temperate, subdued, phlegmatic, stolid, unaffected.
8. HOLISTIC (adjective) समग्र
Meaning: relating to or concerned with complete systems rather than with individual parts.
Synonyms: comprehensive, entire, whole, integrated, aggregate, universal, complete.
Antonyms: deficient, fragmental, partial, scattered, divided, abridged, incomplete, halfway, atomistic, reduced.
9. CLOGGED (verb) रोक-थाम करना
Meaning: block or become blocked with an accumulation of thick, wet matter.
Synonyms: obstruct, congest, jam, choke, bung up, plug, silt up, stop up, seal, occlude, bung, cork, stopple, swamp.
Antonyms: excavate, empty, lighten, clear, free, open (up), unblock, unclog, unplug, unstop.
10. DETERRENT (adjective) निवारक
Meaning: serving to discourage, prevent, or inhibit.
Synonyms: preclusive, admonitory, dissuasive, preventive, restraint, caution, stopping,
Antonyms: encouraging, prosperous, favorable, auspicious, palmy, flourishing, advantageous, comfortable, opportune.
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