question_answer

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Word came last month that after holding him captive for more than a month, Islamic State (IS) militants beheaded   archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad and displayed his mutilated body on a column in a main square of Palmyra in Syria. Al-Asaad was an 82-year-old scholar who had worked for 50 years as the head of antiquities in Palmyra. He was also a father, grandfather and colleague to all who work for the greater preservation and interpretation of the world's artistic legacy.

On Tuesday, a United Nations agency released satellite images confirming the destruction of the main building of a Roman-era temple in Palmyra. Palmyra is the Syrian city famed for its majestic antiquities representative of what once was an important oasis, a trading city that lay between the two great empires of ancient Rome and Iran, connecting the Mediterranean with Mesopotamia.

In addition to the beauty of its ancient architecture comparable in Bowersock's estimation only to Petra in Jordan, Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Athenian Acropolis in Greece, is a reminder that we have always sought to connect with new and different cultures, absorbing many of their forms and qualities into our own languages, belief systems and artistic styles. What the ancient traders of Palmyra brought to that city, modern traders have brought to Mumbai and other Indian and global cities: new ideas, artistic forms and religious practices. The IS's destruction of ancient sites is barbaric and the world should rise up to condemn it with a plentitude of voices. For, cultural heritage is "one of the basic elements of civilization." This is how we will defeat the IS. Not with military might alone, but with our embrace of multiple points of views and interwoven identities. The more we recognise that we have not one but multiple identities ?national, religious, cultural and moral ? the more tolerant we will be of others. For ours is an interrelated world. Each of us shares an identity with another. To condemn another's identity is to condemn a part of our own. In this respect, as in so many others, India is a great example for the world. It is a diverse and rambunctious democracy, a robust trading nation with a long and complex history of commercial relations with much of the world, and a dynamic diaspora embracing both its new and many homes and its ancient ties to older ones. India should seize this opportunity for leadership and defend difference at home and abroad.

"............beauty of its ancient architecture, comparable in Bowersock's estimation only to

Petra in Jordan, Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Athenian Acropolis in Greece..."

Which of the following has been referred by the statement given above?

A) Islamic State

B) Khaled al-Asaad

C) Palmyra

D) A Syrian city

E) None of these