Question

Read the passage and answer the question. Passage: In a small town in Tamil Nadu, a weaver sits at a wooden loom that his grandfather built, throwing a shuttle back and forth to make a silk sari that will take three weeks to finish. A power loom in a distant factory can produce a similar-looking sari in a day, yet buyers pay many times more for the handwoven one. The difference lies in the human hand: tiny variations in the weave, colours mixed from natural dyes, and patterns that carry the name of the village where they were born. Handloom weaving supports nearly four million households in India, most of them in villages, and for many weaver families it is the only source of income. The craft now faces a shortage of young weavers, who leave for steadier wages in cities, and of affordable raw silk and cotton. Government schemes offer training and marketing help, but weavers say the real need is fair pricing: unless a handwoven sari earns its maker a living wage, the loom will fall silent within a generation. The word 'shuttle' in the passage refers to: