Directions (18-22): Five coherent statements are given. Rearrange those in a meaningful order and answer the questions following to that.

(A) During the decades preceding independence, as well as those after, India’s sole emphasis was on agriculture.

(B) Recently Indian government announced reintroduction of 8 cheetah in Indian forest by translocating them from Namibia.

(C) While over-hunting was a major contributing factor for the cheetah’s extinction, the decimation of grassland-forest habitat also played a role.

(D) The aim behind the translocation is not only to restore India’s ‘historic evolutionary balance’, but also to develop a cheetah ‘metapopulation’.

(E) This included acquiring off grassland, which led to a decline in the cheetah’s habitat.

Which of the following will be the fourth statement after rearrangement?

The correct option is B.

To determine the correct order of the statements, let us analyze the logical connection between each statement step-by-step:
1. Statement (C) serves as the introductory statement. It introduces the main subject—the cheetah's extinction in India—and highlights its key causes: over-hunting and habitat decimation.
2. Statement (A) naturally follows statement (C) as it provides context for why grassland habitats were decimated, pointing out that India's primary focus during and after independence was on agriculture.
3. Statement (E) builds directly on statement (A). The pronoun "This" in statement (E) refers to the agricultural emphasis mentioned in (A), explaining that acquiring grassland for farming led to a further decline in cheetah habitat.
4. Statement (B) introduces the present-day initiative to rectify the historical loss, describing the Indian government's recent announcement to reintroduce 8 cheetahs translocated from Namibia.
5. Statement (D) concludes the sequence by explaining the aim behind the translocation mentioned in statement (B).

Thus, the meaningful logical sequence of the given statements is C – A – E – B – D.

Let us identify the position of each statement in the rearranged paragraph:
• First statement: C
• Second statement: A
• Third statement: E
• Fourth statement: B
• Fifth statement: D

Therefore, the fourth statement after rearrangement is statement (B).