PARAGRAPH,WORDS AND MEANINGS

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Topic Of The Day:-“Healing Touch: Providing Safety To Kashmiri Students”

Kashmiri Students Elsewhere Must Be Reassured Of Their Personal Safety

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a petition seeking directions to educational institutions to protect Kashmiris in the face of harassment and intimidation in various parts of the country after the ghastlyterror attack in Pulwama on February 14. Hundreds of Kashmiri students, primarily from Dehradun in Uttarakhand, have already returned home or moved to Delhi or Jammu seeking safety. Amid these reports, the Union Home Ministry had on Saturday issued an advisory to all States and Union Territories to ensurethe safety of Kashmiris. The Jammu and Kashmir police too have set up helplines. It is to be hoped that these measures will be strengthened, especially with the Supreme Court now hearing the issue. It needs to be made clear by the State and Central governments that there will be no compromise on the State’s responsibility to ensure the well-being of citizens. Equally, there needs to be stern action against the mobs that harassed and tried to frighten Kashmiris. The Uttarakhand police arrested 22 students on Tuesday for trying to have Kashmiri students expelled from their college, but there have been other similar instances. It will be a cause for lasting shame if young people studying in different parts of the country were sought to be isolated, and their ethnic identity headlined to make them targets of majoritarian mobs looking to avenge a terrorist attack. Law and order must prevail, and the students must be given enough confidence that they can return to their educational institutions and studies without fear.

However, occurrences such as these, of communally charged attacks, cannot be forgotten with the merereturn to a semblance of normalcy. No group of Indians should be allowed to be isolated by blame-calling mobs, and the situation demands a strong, politically-led initiative to end the intimidation and reassure the victims. Given this, it is regrettable that members of the Narendra Modi Cabinet have either been in denialor have infused ambiguity into their statements of reassurance. Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, for instance, on Wednesday said outright that there had been no such harassment. Equally disturbing, he prefaced his remarks with a reference to “a tremendous reaction of anger in the country about the Pulwama incident”. The fact is that many Kashmiris have already fled Dehradun, and some of them have shared their stories. Mr. Javadekar, as HRD Minister, should address their feeling of insecurity, instead of being dismissive about it, and in the process allowing the mobs a free pass. Moreover, the fact that anti-Pakistan sloganeering can so easily slip into anti-Kashmiri rhetoric must bother civil society and politicians of all hues. Even if the attacks are isolated, the counter-argument must come from across the political spectrum, and in one voice: that all Kashmiris enjoy all protections and rights available to them as Indian citizens.

MEANINGS AND WORDS:-

1) intimidation

Meaning : the action of intimidating someone, or the state of being intimidated(n).

Synonyms : constrain

Antonyms : assure

Example : “the intimidation of witnesses and jurors”

2) ghastly

Meaning : causing great horror or fear(adj).

Tamil Meaning : கோரமான

Synonyms : appalling

Antonyms : comforting

Example : “one of the most ghastly crimes ever committed”

3) Amid

Meaning : surrounded by; in the middle of.

Synonyms : among

Antonyms : beyond

Example : “our dream home, set amid magnificent rolling countryside”

4) ensure

Meaning : make certain that (something) will occur or be the case(v).

Synonyms : assure

Antonyms : endanger

Example : “the client must ensure that accurate records are kept”

5) expelled

Meaning : officially make (someone) leave a school or other organization(v).

Synonyms : dislodge

Antonyms : absorb

Example : “she was expelled from school”

6) sought

Meaning : attempt to find (something)(v).

Synonyms : desired

Example : “they came here to seek shelter from biting winter winds”

7) avenge

Meaning : inflict harm in return for (an injury or wrong done to oneself or another)(v).

Synonyms : vindicate

Antonyms : comfort

Example : “he vowed in silent fervour to avenge their murders”

8) prevail

Meaning : prove more powerful or superior(v).

Synonyms : prove

Antonyms : forfeit

Example : “it is hard for logic to prevail over emotion”

9) mere

Meaning : used to emphasize how small or insignificant someone or something is.

Synonyms : bare

Antonyms : decorated

Example : “questions that cannot be answered by mere mortals”

10) semblance

Meaning : the outward appearance or apparent form of something, especially when the reality is different.

Synonyms : veneer

Antonyms : reality

Example : “she tried to force her thoughts back into some semblance of order”

11) reassure

Meaning : say or do something to remove the doubts or fears of (someone)(v).

Synonyms : assure

Antonyms : annoy

Example : “he understood her feelings and tried to reassure her”

12) regrettable

Meaning : (of conduct or an event) giving rise to regret; undesirable; unwelcome.

Synonyms : deplorable

Antonyms : comforting

Example : “the loss of this number of jobs is regrettable”

13) denial

Meaning : the action of denying something(n).

Synonyms : disapproval

Antonyms : ratification

Example : “she shook her head in denial“

14) infused

Meaning : soak (tea, herbs, etc.) in liquid to extract the flavour or healing properties.

Synonyms : impart

Antonyms : dehydrate

Example : “infuse the dried flowers in boiling water”

15) ambiguity

Meaning : the quality of being open to more than one interpretation; inexactness(n).

Synonyms : uncertainty

Antonyms : certainty

Example : “we can detect no ambiguity in this section of the Act”

16) tremendous

Meaning : very great in amount, scale, or intensity(adj).

Synonyms : dreadful

Antonyms : believable

Example : “Penny put in a tremendous amount of time”

17) outright

Meaning : wholly and completely(adv).

Synonyms : absolute

Antonyms : imperfect

Example : “logging has been banned outright”

18) dismissive

Meaning : feeling or showing that something is unworthy of consideration(adj).

Synonyms : cavalier

Antonyms : humble

Example : “monetarist theory is dismissive of the need to control local spending”

19) rhetoric

Meaning : the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques(n).

Synonyms : oratory

Antonyms : quiet

Example : “he is using a common figure of rhetoric, hyperbole”

20) hues

Meaning : a colour or shade(n).

Synonyms : tinge

Antonyms : white

Example : “the water is the deepest hue of aquamarine”