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  3. India is being invaded by Kentucky Fried Chicken. That, at least, was the charge made last week by a nationalist group, which so

India is being invaded by Kentucky Fried Chicken. That, at least, was the charge made last week by a nationalist group, which so

admin2011-01-08  71
问题     India is being invaded by Kentucky Fried Chicken. That, at least, was the charge made last week by a nationalist group, which sought to shut down the fast-food chain’s first outlet in India on the ground that American "junk food" is beneath local health standards. But the cry of fowl play was nothing next to the outrage that many Indians felt when they learned that another US multinational, W. R. Grace & Co., had allegedly patented and claimed rights to their revered neem tree. Known in Sanskrit as Sarva Rogo Nivarini, or "curer of all ailments," the so-called miracle tree has served for millennia as a kind of comer drugstore to rural Indians. The neem’s leaves and bark are used to heal ailments from acne to infections to diabetes; its seeds can become pesticides. Its twigs even make a good rustic toothbrush.
    As the news spread, dozens of groups held seminars and meetings to vent their anger against W. R. Grace, the Florida-based chemicals conglomerate. "Patenting neem is like patenting cow dung!" thundered one Indian parliamentarian, George Fernades, the source of much of the agitation was Jeremy Rifkin, a vocal US opponent of genetic engineering, and Vandana Shiva, director of India’s Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resources. In Washington, they and others submitted a petition to the US Patent and Trademark Office with some 100, 000 signatures asking that Grace’s patent be overturned. Rifkin asserted that the company’s hijacking of the neem tree’s chemical properties "is the first case of genetic c01onialism."
    It’s no fun being a multinational corporation in India these days. After four years of rapid-fire market openings, the nation is undergoing a convulsive backlash against foreigners. Not coincidentally, this is happening just as India is reaching record levels of foreign investment -- $2 billion already this year, double the amount in 1994. Led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and other nationalist groups, enemies of Prime Minister R V. Narasimha Rao’s reformist administration are rallying around a classic Indian political banner: xenophobia. Last month a new nationalist government in the industrial state of Maharashtra reneged on a contracted signed more than three years ago with Enron Corp. to build a major power plant near Bombay. Other protests have struck Indian operations of McDonald’s and Pizza Hut.
    Many foreign companies insist the world’s largest democracy still has too much potential to pass up: Ford Motor Co., for example, last week announced an $800 million plan to build cars in Nashik. But with national elections just seven months away, things are likely to get much worse before they improve.  
By the statement that "the nation is undergoing a convulsive backlash against foreigners", the author wants to convey ______.
选项 A、the Indians have a mixed feeling about foreigners
B、the Indians begin to dislike foreigners
C、the Indians open their arms to welcome foreigners
D、the Indians shut their doors to foreigners
答案B
解析 该题属于主旨题。在整篇文章中，作者都很明确地阐述了印度国人对外国公司的复杂心理，他们已经觉醒，他们大多数人对外国肆意掠夺其国有资产表示了不满。这是民族意识的觉醒，这是人们从盲目崇拜外国到合乎情理的欣赏，从盲目崇拜外国到有分寸地反对所必须经历的一个过程。外国公司把印度国宝注册为自己的专利，必然引起印度国人的反对，由此激起人们对外国人的普遍反感，也是可以理解的。据此分析，选项B应为正确答案。  
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