Equality, media and markets with Answers

Answers

1. 1) Every adult citizen has one vote, regardless of wealth, caste, religion, gender or education - so a landless labourer's vote counts exactly as much as a landlord's.
2. 2) Because a legal right on paper does not by itself end a practice that had gone on for centuries. Stating it in the Constitution made it enforceable rather than merely disapproved of.
3. 3) Cooked meals provided in government schools, which improved both attendance and nutrition. It also had a second effect that mattered: children of all castes eating together in the same place.
4. 4) Because the law can treat two people identically while their circumstances do not. A child who has to work after school and one who has a tutor both have the same right to education, and not the same chance of using it.
5. 5) Setting aside places for groups kept out of education and government work for generations. It is meant to correct a disadvantage that formal equality alone would leave in place.
6. 6) Because tying the vote to wealth or education would give power only to those who already have both, and leave everyone else unable to change anything.
7. 7) It brings basic treatment and medicines within reach of people who cannot travel to a town or pay a private doctor - which is what makes the right to health real rather than stated.
8. 8) Because a private school is out of reach for many families. Without a government school, the right to education would exist on paper for children whose parents cannot pay.

Answers

1. 1) It means the media decides which stories get attention and which do not, and so shapes what the public thinks about. A story that is never reported cannot be discussed, however important it may be.
2. 2) Because the owner can influence what is reported and how. If a small number of owners control many outlets, the range of views the public sees narrows even though the number of channels does not.
3. 3) Because the money from advertising is what pays for the channel to run. That also means advertisers have some influence, since a channel depends on keeping them.
4. 4) Because the people it affects may have little money and so are not the audience advertisers want to reach. A story about a distant village may be genuinely important and still not be considered worth broadcasting.
5. 5) That it reports without being controlled by government or by its owners' interests. It is hard to maintain because most media depend on advertising and on official access, and both can be withdrawn.
6. 6) Because each chooses what to include, whom to quote and what to call it. The same protest can be reported as a demand for rights or as a disruption, simply by those choices.
7. 7) Because a single report may be incomplete, mistaken or slanted. Comparing sources shows which facts they all agree on and which are one channel's interpretation.
8. 8) To check it before passing it on. Forwarding something false spreads it further and faster than the original, and the reader becomes part of the problem.

Answers

1. 1) Because a weekly market has almost no fixed costs - no permanent building, no electricity bill, no permanent staff - and many sellers of the same goods compete on price. A mall carries all of those costs, and the price has to cover them.
2. 2) The factory sells in bulk to a wholesale trader, who sells smaller quantities to shopkeepers, who sell single shirts to buyers. Each step adds its own cost and profit, which is why the shirt costs several times what the factory received.
3. 3) Because it is close by, opens at convenient hours, gives credit to people it knows, and will sell one or two of something. Those advantages matter more to a regular customer than a slightly lower price further away.
4. 4) Usually the worker who stitched it. The wholesaler and the shopkeeper each add their share, and the worker is paid a fixed wage for the work rather than a share of what the shirt eventually sells for.
5. 5) Because buying directly cuts out the middleman, so the trader pays less and the farmer may get more. It also lets the trader choose the quality he wants.
6. 6) A market where goods are bought in bulk and sold on to shopkeepers rather than to the public. It exists because a single shop cannot buy directly from every producer.
7. 7) Because it offers air conditioning, parking, fixed quality and the assurance of a brand, and its costs are far higher. Customers who value those things are willing to pay for them.
8. 8) It lets the customer buy what the family needs before payday and settle later. That depends entirely on the shopkeeper knowing the family, which is why a local shop can do it and a large store cannot.