Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow. If you have been missing the once-familiar chirping of sparrows around your house, here's your chance to contribute to finding out why this common bird seems to have disappeared from cities across India. A two months long online survey called Citizen Sparrow was launched inviting responses from people on questions such as when they last sighted the bird and details about the area they live in. "It is an elementary step to gather information. We are encouraging people to report their experience, be it a drastic drop in sparrow count or a sudden spurt. These inputs will give us valuable leads to compile pan-India data," said Suhel Quader, evolutionary ecologist at the National Centre for Biological Sciences. The disappearance of the house sparrow, so widespread till recently that the Chinese Communist Party declared it a pest in 1958 and asked people to exterminate it, remains a great modern mystery world wide. In the UK, sparrows are estimated to have declined from over 12 million to 6 million, since the mid 70s. "The survey would give us the first baseline data about distribution of sparrows in the country. This would form the basis for further research," said Karthik K, project coordinator. The objective of involving ordinary citizens rather than experts comes with a purpose. “Almost everyone knows about sparrows. It is an attempt to reach out to people, asking them to share their stories and their understanding of these birds," said Quader. Participants in the survey would be asked to mark locations on a map and give information about their sparrow sightings, including sightings from last year and even earlier. Such information will enable a comparison of population of sparrows in different places and this is expected to point to particular threats or problems. The findings are intended to feed detailed studies investigating causes of decline and potential measures for the recovery of sparrow populations. The sparrow is an indicator of a trend. A number of other birds have also declined sharply in the past few decades. The survey would provide more clues about why these birds are disappearing. The outcome of the information collected would be to