Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
A Banarasi sari is slow to make and quick to copy. On a handloom in Varanasi, a heavy brocade piece can occupy a weaver for several weeks, and the skill is usually passed down within a family. Into the silk goes zari, a thread once wrapped in real gold or silver. The motifs seem to sit on the cloth rather than inside it.
A powerloom can produce something that looks much the same in a fraction of the time, and cheaper imitations are now sold everywhere. At a shop counter the difference is far from obvious. This, more than the machine itself, is the weaver’s problem. When the old patronage of courts and wealthy families faded, the craft came to depend on strangers who could not tell what they were paying for.
In 2009 Banarasi saris and brocades received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, which limits the name to goods made in the region. The step was necessary, but its reach is tenuous: a name is easy to borrow and hard to police, and a certificate does little at a crowded counter.
What has helped more is visibility. Designers have carried the weave into contemporary clothes and named the people who made it. Some weavers now sell directly online, with short videos of the loom at work, so that the weeks of labour are seen rather than merely claimed. A buyer who has watched a sari take shape over a fortnight is less inclined to bargain it down to the price of a copy. National Handloom Day, marked every 7 August, gives the effort a yearly push. The looms are still slow, and in many weaving families the young are still weighing other work.
According to the passage, the Geographical Indication tag:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → keeps the name for goods of the region but is hard to enforce
The third paragraph says what the tag does and where it falls short.
- The tag “limits the name to goods made in the region”.
- But “a name is easy to borrow and hard to police”. To police a rule here means to check that people obey it. So the tag is hard to enforce (make people follow).
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: has stopped cheaper imitations from being sold in shops — Incorrect. Contradicted: The passage says cheaper imitations “are now sold everywhere”.
Option 2: was granted after designers began to name the weavers — Incorrect. Wrong link: The passage does not connect the tag with the designers or say which came first.
Option 3: is shown on a certificate that buyers check at the counter — Incorrect. Contradicted: The writer says a certificate “does little at a crowded counter”. Buyers there do not use it.