UGC NET Reading Comp Q1

Question

Read the following passage and answer the five questions that follow.

The UN (United Nations) has lost its sheen in recent times. One example is of its Secretary General Guterres' entreaty for a global ceasefire to help combat the Coronavirus has gone largely unheeded. His plea for contributions to a $10 billion emergency coronavirus response plan to help the neediest had been met with commitments totaling just a quarter of the goal. That response barely justifies the description 'tepid', said Mark Lowcock, the top UN relief official. The United Nations, which has grown from 50 members 75 years ago to 193 members and a global staff of 44,000 was intended at its inception to provide a forum in which countries large and small believed they had a meaningful voice. But its basic structure gives little real power to the main body, the General Assembly, and the most to the World War II victors- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - with each wielding a veto on the 15-seat Security Council as permanent members. The council is empowered to impose economic sanctions and is the only entity permitted to deploy military force. No permanent member seems willing to alter the power structure. The outcome is chronic Security Council deadlocks on many issues, often pitting the United States against not only China and Russia but also against US allies. It is not only on questions of war and ceasefire where the United Nations is struggling for results. The Sustainable Development Goals, 17 UN objectives aimed at eliminating inequities that include poverty, gender bias and illiteracy by 2030 are imperiled. An expert belonging to the Global Policy Forum, a UN monitoring group, told a conference previously that the objectives were "seriously off track" even before the pandemic, according to a news site that covers the United Nations. UN veterans say multilateralism- solving the problems together, a tenet of the organisation's charter- increasingly collides with principles in the same charter emphasising national sovereignty and nonintervention in the country's internal affairs.

Accepted Answer

B