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  3. For an ambitious economic superpower, there can be few more nasty events than electricity cuts as massive as those that struck n

For an ambitious economic superpower, there can be few more nasty events than electricity cuts as massive as those that struck n

admin2014-04-20  0
问题     For an ambitious economic superpower, there can be few more nasty events than electricity cuts as massive as those that struck northern and eastern India this week. An area in which more than 600m people live faced blackouts over two days. The impact on India’s economy goes far beyond lost output. The blackout will badly damage the country’s reputation, and highlights the rotten infrastructure.
    The cause of the blackouts is gloomy—an overloading of the national network that links together regional grids is the most likely explanation. By most accounts engineers did a heroic job of patching things up. But the power industry, which must double its output roughly every decade if India is to grow fast, has long been a disaster waiting to happen. A pile of private capital has been attracted to build new power stations. But the rest of the supply chain is a mess.
    At one end, not enough cheap coal is being dug up and gasfields are spouting. At the other, the national transmission grid needs investment. Meanwhile the " last mile" distribution companies, largely state-owned, that buy power and deliver it to homes and firms, are financial monsters. Much of their power is pinched or given away free. Local politicians put pressure on them to keep tariffs low, which leads to huge losses. Squeezed between a shortage of fuel and end-customers who are nearly broke, those private generating firms are now cutting back on vital long-term investment in new plants.
    The solution is to cut graft, tackle vested interests and allow markets to work better. The coal monopoly needs to be broken up and local distribution firms privatized. Yet despite the looming crisis, for a decade the government has shirked doing what is clearly necessary, just as it has failed to implement key tax reforms, cut public borrowing or open the retail sector to competition. It has allowed corruption and red tape to damage other vital industries, such as telecoms.
    Politicians shirk these tasks because they fear offending powerful lobbies, such as the farmers who receive subsidised electricity, while voters seem to manifest little appetite for reform. No party has a clear majority in parliament, and none was elected on a platform of change. The present Congress-led coalition government has few people with a record of or an instinct for reform, save perhaps the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, who has now run out of vigor. It relies on unreliable regional parties to stay in power.
    India’s great blackout is a consequence of rotten governance. Voters need to understand that, and deliver the country’s political class a different kind of electric shock.
According to the last paragraph, the author calls on the voters to______.
选项 A、punish ruling parties severely
B、overthrow the current government
C、create disturbance in power industry
D、strongly urge the politicians
答案D
解析 细节题。在最后一段的总结中，作者指出这次大范围停电是政府统治腐败的结果。最后一句要求选民们在理解当前形势的基础之后“deliver the country’s political class a different kind of electric shock”，所谓的“电击”(electric shock)当然不能做字面理解，而应结合上段对改革阻力的分析，理解为“促动不作为的政治家们采取行动”，因此[D]正确。四个选项中，首先可以排除[C]，由第五段开始，话题已经离开电力行业本身，而转入对印度时政的剖析，因此所谓的“电击”不可能是在电力企业制造骚乱。至于[A]“重重惩罚执政党”和[B]“推翻现任政府”，都与选民的政治身份不符合，且脱离了本文关于开展行业改革的主题，因此均应排除。
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