Directions: Fill in the blanks in the passage below, with the word from among the options given for each blank labelled (1) to (10). Choose the word that fits in each blank most appropriately in the context of the passage.
In August 1950, one of Australia’s most ___(1)___ jurists, Sir Owen Dixon (who sought to mediate a settlement on Kashmir) wrote to his daughter, Anne, in Melbourne that Delhi was “a place I hope and trust that I shall never again see”. More than 70 years later, as distinguished thought leaders from India and Australia meet in New Delhi (September 6) for the fifth round of the most important ___(2)___ Track 1.5 dialogue, it is widely recognised that Canberra’s relationship with New Delhi is among the most important and critical for the future of the Indo-Pacific. The leaders at the dialogue will reflect on the past, but recommend more concrete steps to ___(3)___ the relationship and ways to create a more habitable and sustainable planet.
When we started this dialogue we recognised that for most of the 20th century, India and Australia rarely had a ___(4)____ conversation. The long shadow of the Cold War, India’s autarkic economic policies, the White Australia policy, and Canberra’s decision not to transfer uranium to India and other ___(5)___ had kept the two countries apart for several decades. We used to celebrate each other’s problems rather than our successes. But that era of mutual schadenfreude is well and truly over.
Today, few countries in the Indo-Pacific region have more in common in both values and interests than India and Australia. Apart from being two English-speaking, multicultural, federal democracies that believe in and respect the rule of law, both have a strategic interest in ensuring a balance in the Indo-Pacific and in ensuring that the region is not ___(6)___ by any one hegemonic power. In addition, Indians are today the largest source of skilled migrants in Australia and the economic relationship, already robust, could potentially be transformed if the promise of the new Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) is ___(7)___.
A ___(8)___ is a conversation between equals who have agreed to work as partners. No one just preaches, no one just listens. Thought leaders have come here, some from long distances, to have a robust conversation about our relationship and ways in which we can carry it forward. We are here also to lead and provide markers for the ___(9)___ of the relationship between our two great countries.
We are living through a period of immense turbulence, disruption and even subversion: the world is more uncertain than it ever was in our lifetimes. Even the Cold War, some may say, had ___(10)___, icy as it may have been.