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The infrastructure sector is one of the major pillars for economic growth and development of a country. The responsibility to develop this crucial sector is shifting away from the public to the private sector. After the economic liberalization in 1991, India opened the infrastructure sector, among many others, to private domestic and foreign investment. The shortage of electricity, the poor state of roads, and limited telecom access necessitated a stream of persistent reforms, which were expected to play a significant role in the infrastructure sector's growth. Although some subsectors witnessed success, others continued to face hurdles. The paper highlights the role of infrastructure in socio‐economic development through global literature. It also presents a story of infrastructure development in India since the inception of economic liberalization. It highlights various challenges that discourage private sector investments, thus providing a rationale for policy initiatives by the government. The paper also presents critical issues highlighted by multiple government committees over nearly three decades and identifies residual issues that merit attention. The outcomes of the paper are relevant in the context of developing and emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicriteria mathematical modeling is an analytical framework for formally describing real‐life problems involving multiple and conflicting objectives. In the past decade, multicriteria decision‐making techniques have been applied in almost every area of the decision‐making including energy‐economic planning and sustainable development. Various mathematical and analytical models have been presented for the sustainable development planning and their assessment. In this paper, we discuss an approach related to multicriteria decision‐making and apply it for the assessment of the sustainable development goals of India by the year 2030. In the INDC report submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015, http://www..unfccc.int/submissions/INDC/Published%20Documents/India/1/INDIA%20INDC%20TO%20UNFCCC.pdf), India has identified many goals related to the sustainable development like energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, GVA growth, and an increase in the employment by the year 2030. This paper overcomes the energy resource allocation problem in related literature due to the lack of sectorial data for the same year by calculating the estimates for each sector for the year 2030. We presented a multicriteria decision‐making model which allocates public labor force in the key economic sectors of India. The presented model is validated with the data of the key economic sectors and their contribution in the identified goals. The paper provides a decision support for the better management of future sustainable policies by assessing the efficiencies of the current policies toward future sustainable goals. We evaluated the identified goals using the multicriteria decision‐making approaches so that the strategic planning can be implemented by the policy makers and to present a quantitative justification of planning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of institutions indicates the level of economic development in the country. Institutions are a part of a system that is based on human interactions and that leads to the generation of incentives. These incentives can deal with uncertainties and foster economic, social, political growth, provided the human interactions are moderated well. This paper reflects on the strength of the interventionalist institutions like cooperatives in India and promotes institution building for a better future. The base of the paper focuses on the lessons learnt from dairy cooperatives in Gujarat state and discusses the current situation of the cooperatives and challenges faced by them. The cooperatives in India have been old institutions with a great history of success as also failures. Though there are various types of cooperatives in India, the dairy cooperatives have been able to gain more attention in the international market due to the Operation Floods I, II, and III. India has secured its position as one of the largest milk producers in the world. At present, India produces 20% of the total milk production in the world. This paper is a blend and analysis of theoretical perspectives and ground realities of the dairy cooperative sector in India. The paper follows theoretical perspectives from institutional theory to analyse the present scenario of dairy cooperatives in India. It addresses the gaps in the dairy cooperative development sector with an in‐depth analysis of ground realities and contributes to future policy formulation and interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessibility and utilization of banking services are the key elements of financial inclusion. Accessibility is the gateway, whereas utilization actually matters in deriving the positive impact of financial inclusion. Plethora of studies have covered the accessibility dimension; however, we found a lack of empirical analysis of the utilization of it. This paper analyses the utilization dimension of financial inclusion using empirical evidence from the rural and tribal regions of an eastern Indian State, that is, the State of Odisha, which is among the low financially included regions of India. The paper explores the purpose/pattern, depth and frequency of utilization of formal financial services using primary data and develops empirical models explaining the demand and supply‐side determinants. The findings include, the utilization of account for saving and borrowing is not satisfactory. Similarly, the depth of account use is limited due to lack of ICT knowledge. The use of bank accounts for the financial transaction is mainly performed to receive direct benefit transfers and NREGS payments rather than savings, credit and insurance purposes. The policymakers can be benefited from this research by understanding the determinants of financial utilization at the grassroots level and could take corrective measures to promote utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliminating poverty by 2030 is the main target of Sustainable Development Goal 1(SDG1). India had an ambitious target of cutting down its poverty rate to 10.95% from 21.92%, by 2030. This review has the objective to consolidate the literature related to SDG1 in India, since 2015 and to identify futuristic research niches. This research focuses on the research questions of identifying the public policy initiatives in India for achieving SDG1 and the performance of various indicators of SDG1 in India. Forty‐one peer‐reviewed articles related to SDG1 in India are selected from the sources of Web of Science and consolidated the findings of these works of literature by using the indicators of NITI Aayog as the themes; described the empirical papers by highlighting the key variables and findings. This research had identified the health insurance penetration; slum rehabilitation and rejuvenation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are the futuristic areas for research. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge and recommends the key areas to be focused on achieving SDG1 in India. This review can help readers in understanding better methods of poverty eradication. High spirits are recommended from the implementing authorities to meet the objectives of indicators of poverty, better housing, health insurance penetration to households, and for the generation of employment and consumption by the scheme of MGNREGA. Moreover, a realistic picture of poverty eradication in India may be possible by using more indicators covering all the targets of SDG1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether investing in R&D reduces the impact of exogenous shocks like the COVID‐19 on stock market performance and accounting performance of manufacturing firms in India. For the sample of listed manufacturing firms, the paper finds that the firms engaged in R&D activities had lower negative cumulative abnormal return than those firms that did not invest in R&D in the pre‐pandemic period using multiple event windows. The result suggests that R&D investments can lower value erosion for the shareholders during a severe crisis period. Further, using a difference‐in‐difference fixed effects model, the study finds that manufacturing firms engaged in R&D activities in the pre‐pandemic period exhibited higher return on sales and growth of total income during the pandemic quarter vis‐à‐vis the non‐R&D firms. The favorable accounting performance indicates the possibility of firm‐level R&D being associated with the firm's ability to adjust its functioning during a crisis, thereby reducing the effect of the crisis. Finally, the study documents that government intervention to reduce the spread of the virus had a differential impact on firms based on their industry of operation. The findings have implications for investors, corporate managers, and policymakers in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties in order to design their competitive strategies are always keen to understand the factors that govern voter's perception. Voter's perception in this paper utilizes voter's acknowledgement of voter orientation (VO) of political parties. The purpose of this paper is to examine the constituent variables and their cumulative impact on voter's orientation and examine the linkage that exists between them. The authors have proposed four key constructs that demonstrates causality namely voter involvement (VI), voter subjective knowledge (VSK), political brand image (PBI) and environmental factor (EF). The study has used SEM method of model estimation. VI and VSK merged into a new construct labelled as voter engagement (VE). Engaged voter would impact PBI positively and political brand impacts VO. The relationship of VE and VO is mediated PBI, but the same kind of mediation is not witnessed in the case of EF. This research advances the understanding of composite variables of VO from the vantage of political market orientation. Political brand mediates the association between VE and voter perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the SARS CoV2 virus, commonly referred to as the COVID‐19 pandemic, has impacted the social, economic, political, and cultural lives of citizens around the world. The sudden outbreak of the pandemic has exposed the legal preparedness, or lack thereof, of governments to reduce and contain its drastic impact. Strong legislative measures play a crucial role in any epidemic or pandemic situation. In this situation, the Indian Government has requested all state governments to invoke the Epidemic Disease Act (EDA) of 1897 to address the COVID‐19 emergency. The Central Government has also used the powers provided in the Disaster Management Act (DMA) of 2005. As the country is facing its first major health emergency since independence, the existing legislative measures to deal with a COVID‐19 like situation are lacking and require certain amendments to address such situations in the future. This paper aims to present the current constitutional and legislative response to health emergencies in India and attempts to identify gray areas in the statutory provisions. Based on the analysis, this paper suggests several recommendations for amending current legislation and suggests the promulgation of comprehensive public health law. This paper is largely based on primary sources such as the EDA and the DMA, regulations, guidelines, rules issued by the public authorities and court cases related to health and health emergencies along with secondary resources such as newspaper articles and published papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID‐19) has impacted everyday lives globally. The number of positive cases is growing and India is now one of the most affected countries. This paper builds predictive models that can predict the number of positive cases with higher accuracy. Regression‐based, Decision tree‐based, and Random forest‐based models have been built on the data from China and are validated on India's sample. The model is found to be effective and will be able to predict the positive number of cases in the future with minimal error. The developed machine learning model can work in real‐time and can effectively predict the number of positive cases. Key measures and suggestions have been put forward considering the effect of lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers to examine the decomposition of the consumption function of the male and female households in India. The decomposition of consumption function is explained by the socio‐economic and demographic variables. The dataset on the 61st round (2004–2005) and 68th round (2011–2012) of NSSO has been used for the analysis. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method is used to explain the important determinants of household consumption expenditure. Also, the Blinder–Oaxaca (B‐O) decomposition technique is used to estimate and to explain the difference of the per capita consumption expenditure of male and female households. The results find that age, household size, education, wages, occupation, and rural dummy are key determinants of the consumption function of male and female households. The results also found that the impact of education and occupation particularly in the service sector is relatively higher for female households than male households. Moreover, the results from the B‐O decomposition method are found that there is a positive gap of per capita consumption expenditure between male–female households in 2004–2005 and these differences are coming from differences of endowment effect between male and female households. But, the results from the year 2011–2012 data have shown that there is a negative mean difference in consumption expenditure of male and female households and this difference is coming from the differences of coefficient effect between male and female households. Finally, the results concluded that the per capita consumption expenditure gap is explained due to changes in education, occupation, and earnings of households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to understand the factors that determine the quality of higher educational institutions and to measure the relative importance of those factors from the students' perspective. A multi‐criteria decision‐making methodology (MCDM), that is, the fuzzy analytical hierarchical process has been used for measuring the relative importance of factors which determine the student satisfaction with regard to perceived quality in education. The measurement of relative weights of the factors that determine the quality of higher educational institutions as per the perception of the students has been done. Further best preference structure of the students for educational institutions has been found from the study. The study was confined to Punjab state of India that means only the perception of students of this particular region was measured. Moreover, the factors undertaken in this study are also limited which were identified from the extensive review of the literature but there is a possibility that some factors might have been ignored. The results of this study can be used to measure the internal quality by the higher educational institutions. In addition to this, the study may be helpful to higher educational institutions to identify the weak areas to be worked upon and give the students as better as possible quality from the students' perspective. The paper attempts to understand the determinants of quality and to prioritize those for educational institutions as perceived by the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study provides empirical evidence on how Indian Accounting Standards (Ind‐AS hereinafter) adoption has affected earnings management (EM hereinafter) in India. The study uses the Beneish Model and Modified Jones model to detect EM. The sample of the study comprises 240 companies listed in the S&P BSE MidSmallCap index for the period 2013–2019. The results of the Modified Jones model reveal that Ind‐AS have no significant effect on EM. However, the Beneish model shows that all ratios except leverage index have a significant relationship with EM after Ind‐AS adoption. Nine industries out of 28 sample industries are suspectable to indulge in manipulating financial statements. The ratio of manipulators to nonmanipulators has grown after Ind‐AS adoption. The paper adds to the literature by examining the impact of new accounting standards on EM in an emerging economy. The findings of the study would be relevant to the public accounting bodies, regulators, accounting professionals, and the public at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments across the board require an educational backup which requires a robust educational system. The last 50 years have witnessed big leap transformation of applications supported by advancements in science and technology. Even today due to the fast advancement it is difficult to evaluate how usage shapes up in the near future. This requires an upgraded educational structure to cope with the challenges. India has over 1/sixth of the human force representation on the global map and it should contribute strongly to the global development in sync with the human force representation on earth. India responded slowly to the upgradation gap in the education policy and came up with a new one after a gap of 34 years. The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 of India provides a comprehensive framework from primary education to higher education, vocational & technical education and a new paradigm of internet‐based e‐leanings. Five founding pillars of this policy (i.e., Access, equity, affordability, accountability, and quality) have been considered to build the new education system of India to create a perfect harmony with the principles of United Nations (UN) 2030 agenda for sustainable development. However, the successful implementation of this policy requires a significant structural overhaul in the Indian education system. This paper provides insights into various contours of NEP 2020 and how it aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 targets. This paper looks at how India should step up with caution to achieve the objectives. The paper presents some major loopholes and execution challenges that need to be addressed to truly foster "quality education for all" with the objective of providing value to the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to rank the performance of Indian private sector banks on the basis of their financial capability. The study is focussed on those banks which are listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), for the period from 2014–15 to 2018–19. The financial performance of selected Indian private banks is ranked using a hybrid Multi‐Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique, that is, AHP‐TOPSIS. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to determine the weights of 10 financial performance pointers, and further Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is used to provide rankings and benchmarking of the private sector banks. Thereafter, overall ranking is given to the selected banks using interval‐valued TOPSIS (IV‐TOPSIS) for a combined period of 5 years. Sensitivity analysis has been performed to check the robustness of the method and its impact on the final ranking of the banks. Results showed that HDFC bank is the top performer and is ranked first for all the years consecutively during the period 2014–2019 and has set a financial indicator benchmark for other competitor banks. South Indian Bank showed the worst results in each year and stood last in the overall ranking. The IndusInd bank is followed after HDFC bank by improving its performance from 2014–19. With a slight margin, Kotak Mahindra Bank ranked after IndusInd. Through the AHP‐TOPSIS technique, each year the private sector banks ranking differs among themselves depending upon the financial performance pointers. Based on interval‐valued TOPSIS (IV‐TOPSIS), it was found that the overall HDFC was the top‐performing bank and South Indian Bank was the worst‐performing bank among all other banks. The results obtained from sensitivity analysis were found to be consistent with IV‐TOPSIS. The paper used the AHP technique, which is subjective in nature, and the results depend on the opinion of the experts. This study will assist the investors who want to channelize their funds in private banks having shares enlisted in BSE. It will accommodate banks to compare and judge their financial performance along with improving their performance and planning their future strategy. AHP‐TOPSIS utilized by past researchers is unable to bring out the cumulative performance for banks, but in this paper, IV‐TOPSIS is utilized, which can be effectively used to evaluate the cumulative performance of banks. The study tries to fill the gap in the literature by providing the overall ranking to private sector banks in India on the basis of financial indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new correlation measure called perspective correlation measure as a complement to the existing objective correlation measure to detect contagion. Incorporating the effects of currency returns on correlation estimates, we first demonstrate theoretically that the correlation experienced by two investors given a country pair can be different. This is because the correlation measures are inherently distinctive, determined purely from the point of view of the investor, the foreign exchange returns between the two countries for the investment period and the currency in which the investor counts his or her returns. The same has been evidenced from an empirical examination of weekly closing stock index returns data from January 1996 to December 2017 for India and its three developed counterparts, namely, the US, the UK and Japan. Our results indicate that India does not offer diversification benefits to developed country investors but the converse is true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of public expenditure efficiency has drawn the attention of both policymakers and researchers globally. The paper attempts to measure the efficiency of government expenditures on the social sector, especially health and education, among the major Indian states using various data envelopment analysis. The paper also attempts to understand what drives public expenditure efficiency. The results suggest that there is a wide variation in the efficiency of public spending as well as scope for resource‐saving at the subnational level in India. It finds that states are spending their resources more efficiently on education than on health and the overall social sector spending. It also finds that quality of governance, economic growth, and mothers' schooling affects the efficiency of education, health, and social sector with governance to have a larger effect compared to other factors. Overall, the study suggests that improving governance could yield better outcomes from public expenditure. Highlights: The paper looks at understanding the issue of public expenditure of efficiency of education, health, and overall social sector over the 15 year period since the year 2000, broadly covering the millennium development goal period at the subnational level in India.By using data envelopment analysis, the study derives the efficiency scores for major states for three‐time periods for input‐oriented, output‐oriented, and nonoriented conditions.The results broadly suggest that there is wide divergence in terms of efficiency levels across the states and also finds some spatial patterns. States in Western region appear to be more efficient than compared to other regions.Overall, the states appear to be spending efficiently on the education compared to health.In terms of what explains such divergences in efficiency levels, the study looks at broader determinants‐overall governance‐with conditional variables such as level of incomes and mothers' schooling.The econometric results suggest that it is the level of governance that affects the efficiency levels at the subnational level in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to first, understand the existing status of Indian Accounting Standards (Ind‐AS) and its convergence from the perspective of accounting practitioners in India; and second, to elucidate the benefits and challenges while implementing Ind‐AS. The paper exemplifies the Ind‐AS convergence to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) thereon cited as Ind‐AS. The study considers exploratory research design and uses an in‐depth interview approach, a qualitative research method of 32 practitioners in India from a heterogeneous group of 6 regulating institutions, 8 conglomerate companies and 18 audit firms including the Big four. The preparedness of the Ind‐AS transition was studied from the perspective of accounting practitioners interviewed revealing three critical perspectives. First, the respondents believed that a greater understanding of the benefits of IFRS convergence can be built by professional education and proper training. Second, the main challenges reflected by the respondents on the implementation of Ind‐AS can be summarised in two key areas: the complexity and interpretation of the accounting standards, since there are fundamental differences between IFRS and the converged Ind‐AS. Third, by strengthening the regulatory framework for monitoring, enforcing accounting and auditing requirements concerning listed companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are the engines of economic growth, drivers of structural and spatial transformation processes, and the generators of wealth. However, city finances in India are in an abysmal state, and its urban local bodies are progressively losing fiscal autonomy. The problem is deeply rooted in the hierarchy set up defined as per the fiscal federalism framework adopted by the nation. The objective of the paper is to critically review India's federalism, discuss its prevailing expenditure‐revenue assignment framework, and analyse the key issues in fiscal decentralization. This paper overviews the entire public finance system in India, brings out the anomalies in expenditure and revenue assignments between the higher levels of government and the urban local bodies, and addresses the areas of concerns at the urban local government level. It also suggests policy measures to put Indian urban local bodies on a strong footing in the public finance map of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social adjustment, and feeling isolated, is one of the critical issues faced by the Hijra's from our society, due to sexual prejudices and stigmas. However, no one bothers how they actually feel, how they see themselves? The idea behind the paper is to identify the impact of looking‐glass self (self‐concept) on happiness, self‐esteem, and satisfaction with life, among transgender from Hijra community, to accentuate the reality of how they feel, what is their self‐concept, and its relationship with the mentioned constructs. The current study was conducted in India; snowball sampling is used to contact the respondents of the mentioned category, and variance‐based structural equation modeling techniques on second‐order construct, using two‐stage approach, were used to study the relationships between the constructs used for the current study. The outcome of the study depicts that there is a presence of significant relationships between the mentioned variables, which show that the respondents are strongly maintaining their self‐concept but that does not mean anyway that they are also happy and enjoying the social treatment given to them. This study is for the social workers, government as well as for the society, who pretends as a flag bearer of quality and promotes diversity in India. It will be an eye‐opener for all those who really want to support such marginalized community as they have already achieved a place in the gender column under the gender category as other "Third Gender." The current study is original and contributes in understanding the truth behind the real journey of the mentioned community. How they feel, what they expect is still untapped; this paper will raise voice for them to contribute in respectful living in Indian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we probe the determinants of crop diversification agricultural technique for the North‐Eastern region/zone (NER/NEZ) of India. We use a balanced panel data for the period 1990 through 2015 subject to the availability of the data and employ the cointegration and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) models to identify the variables that promote the requirement of crop diversification technique for NEZ of India. Our findings show the evidence of cointegration among the variables included in the system and the results of DOLS model explain that agricultural credit, and cropping intensity positively explain the crop diversification while fertilizers, rural road density, and operational holdings are negatively related to crop diversification for north eastern states of India. Our results further merit the demand of effective government policies pertaining to agriculture so that the agricultural output of NEZ and farm earnings of the agriculturists can be increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to document the impact of movies/cinema on Indian culture and to investigate the ongoing cultural transformations that have happened over a point of time in India owing to the contributions made by Indian cinema. Moreover, an attempt is made to understand how Indian movies have initiated various changes with regards to thought process on one hand and lifestyle on the other. A purposive sampling of 20 young individuals from various universities were selected. Methodology adopted is qualitative in nature, based upon structured and in‐depth interviews which enabled the respondents to opine regarding their understanding of the change. There has been changes with regards to the institutions of marriage and instances of live in relationships have come of age and there has been a constant and continuous shift from joint families to nuclear families. Elaborating on the changes in the cultural practices; preferences have changed with regards to food habits, clothing, choice of career options and belief system. The distinctive contribution of the present paper is to offer an understanding of the impact of movies on Indian culture especially on the youth extracting information from the structured and in‐depth interviews. This paper also tries to document the behavioral changes in the youth as a bi‐product of films. Moreover, the present study attempts to view youth from cultural film theory perspective for India in general and on youths in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the twin deficit hypothesis in case of India. Furthermore, this paper examines the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis and the Feldstein‐Horioka puzzle to complement the twin deficit hypothesis. To substantiate objectives, annual time series data for the period 1970 to 2012 have been used. Time series econometrics techniques such as vector autoregressive model and auto regressive distributive lag model have been employed wherever necessary. The empirical findings suggest the rejection of twin deficit hypothesis and Feldstein‐Horioka puzzle. However, it validates the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis i.e the fiscal deficit does not affect the current account deficit. Fiscal deficit retaining strategy may not be all in controlling current account deficit, than taking wholesome strategy that includes export promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to focus on climatic risk as a potential determinant of temporary labour migration in Semi‐Arid Tropics (SAT) village in India for the year 2013–2014. Specifically, we address the question of how households use temporary labour migration as a coping mechanism to minimise the risk posed by climate variables such as drought, floods, cyclone etc. In doing so, the paper uses a binary choice model (logistic regression) to examine the potential socioeconomic and demographic factors along with climatic risk that determine the probability of migration of workers in select Indian semi‐arid villages. The paper uses data from International Crops Research Institute for the Semi‐Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The results show that among all climatic risk anomalies, maximum households in SAT villages are affected by drought risk. It is accounted that 69% of households are influenced by the drought risk. With respect to compensation of climatic risk, around 17% of non‐migrant households received government support, while only 9% of migrant households received such assistance in this study. Also, the logistic regression models predict that the probability of household having any temporary migrants is significantly determined by climatic risk along with other demographic and socio‐economic factors. To the best of the authors' knowledge, perhaps this is the first paper that makes a direct approach of linking climatic risk with temporary labour migration in semi‐arid tropics region of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Property tax is the most important municipal tax in India. Theoretically, property tax subscribes to efficiency, ability to pay, benefit and equity principles of public finance. However, it is grossly under‐exploited. The reasons why the potential of property tax is far from being realized include systemic problems and inefficiency in municipal tax administration. Considering the importance of property tax for municipal autonomy and its huge unexploited potential, property tax reform in India assumes critical significance. This paper attempts to look to theory and international practice, including innovative initiatives launched by select cities and states in India in the past for designing and pursuing a robust agenda of property tax reforms. In particular, it critically examines the property tax performance of two pioneering municipal corporations: Hyderabad and Bengaluru. We suggest municipal reforms with a focus on user charges for measurable services, move to capital value‐based property tax with land tax component linked to the market value of land, tax mapping and benchmarking, addressing tax base, exemptions, coverage, valuation and collection efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the impact of COVID‐19 on the volatility of stock prices in India with the help of a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model. Daily closing prices of stock indices, Nifty and Sensex from September 3, 2019 to July 10, 2020 has been used for the analysis. Further, the study has been attempted to make a comparison of stock price return in pre‐COVID‐19 and during COVID‐19 situation. Findings reveal that the stock market in India has experienced volatility during the pandemic period. While comparing the result during COVID period with that of the pre‐COVID, we found that the return on the indices is higher in the pre‐COVID‐19 period than during COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate whether COVID‐19 pandemic causes the spot electricity price discovery of the Indian electricity market. To do so, we use the average daily spot electricity price data for five regions of the Indian electricity market (North, East, West, South, and North‐East). The data is considered from March 15, 2020 to May 02, 2020. The results obtained from cross‐sectional augmented Im, Pesaran and Shin (CIPS) unit root test show the stationary of spot electricity price and COVID‐19 at the level. Additionally, we use the Dumitrescu–Hurlin (DH) panel causality test to examine the causality between spot electricity price and COVID‐19. The results reveal the unidirectional causality which is running from COVID‐19 to the spot electricity price discovery but no other way around. Our findings suggests to the policymakers that across different regions of India (North, East, West, South, and North‐East), the ongoing coronavirus outbreak will further disrupt the electricity market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A thrust on insurance‐financed health systems may reduce Out‐of‐pocket health spending. But health insurance penetration among Indian elderly is abysmally low. In this context, the paper intends to examine the factors affecting demand for various types of insurances among Indian elderly. Data were drawn from 71st round (2014–15) "Key Consumption: Health" household survey data collected by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), Government of India. A total number of 27,245 older adults were selected for this study. In addition to basic descriptive statistics, we employ logistic regression models to conduct the econometric analysis. Socioeconomic, health‐related and contextual predictors are considered in this study. The results show that the probability of health insurance coverage among elderly significantly depends on income, education, disease types, caste, family size, and most importantly, social relationships. The underprivileged groups have higher likelihood to be covered by government‐funded insurance, while the older people with higher income and education, having spouses and less number of children, and residing in urban areas have a higher likelihood of purchasing private health insurance. The study identified the factors responsible for low demand for health insurance among elderly. The study suggests the expansion of private insurance network, especially, in the underserved rural areas, along with generating financial awareness among the elderly. The study also suggests an inclusive model of health insurance demand, which may be adopted by future empirical studies to find out the significant factors affecting health insurance demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic crisis triggered by the COVID‐19 urgently required active policy interventions to enhance the revival strategies of the world economy. This paper examines the effectiveness of policy intervention of the State Government of Kerala in India in mitigating the risks caused by the pandemic. The policy effectiveness is evaluated by analyzing the data collected from a sample of 300 beneficiaries with the help of descriptive statistics, ordered probit (OP) model, and semi nonparametric extended OP (SNEOP) model. Our results are assertive with the fact that state policies are effective in reviving the crisis‐hit economy as they have primarily helped low‐income groups and other marginalized communities. The majority of BPL families, self‐help group members, and social security beneficiaries rated government policies as highly or fairly effective. Though the policies are found to be highly effective among those who have suffered income loss, the study does not find sufficient evidence to believe that the government interventions are effective in helping those who have lost their jobs. The level of effectiveness is inversely related to age, education, and family size. Our results suggest that an extensive fiscal package is required to help people recover from the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developing countries like India, the majority of the workforce is informal. There is no specific study about the important factors that influence the consumption expenditure of informal workers working in urban areas. The purpose of this paper, thus, is to identify the determinants of the consumption expenditures of urban informal workers, and the same is explored with respect to migration and gender. In this regard, a primary survey was conducted at the household level of the informal sector workers following the method of multi‐stage stratified sampling. The method of analysis of variance and a binary logistic regression model is employed. The inferences of the study explained that the expenditure pattern of the informal worker depends on socio‐economic factors—age group, income level and essential commodities like milk, kerosene, oil and child education. The study also highlights the fact that the informal workers are dragged into the web of a vicious circle of poverty due to a higher level of consumption expenditure than income and demonstrates the effect of betel‐tendu leaf mini cigarette‐tobacco‐alcohol. Hence, it is desirable that the policymakers should frame a regulated subsidised pricing policy for essential commodities as well as increase the minimum wage rate in order to strengthen the basic consumption expenditure of the informal workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the sustainability of the current account deficit (CAD) and validity of the intertemporal budget constraint of India for the period of 1980 to 2019. The cointegration results show that exports and imports are not cointegrated and the current account (CA) series is not mean reverting during the study period. Therefore, the results refute the sustainability of CAD and the validity of the intertemporal budget constraint in the Indian context. Furthermore, the study also emphasised the testing of the disaggregated CA and found that while the goods account is not sustainable, the services account found to be sustainable in the long run. Our findings thus indicate the potential for aggregation bias to have an impact on the overall CA sustainability results. Therefore, policies that help in achieving self‐sufficiency on the one hand and export promotion in goods on the other may eventually contribute to CA sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the effect of economic globalization on India's aggregate export performance during the period from 1995:M1 to 2016:M12. We use various macroeconomic variables such as export, relative price, nominal effective exchange rate (NEER), GDP per capita, and economic globalization. We employ Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to find out the long‐run equilibrium relationship among the variables considered. The empirical results indicate that there exists a long‐run equilibrium relationship between export, relative price, NEER, GDP per capita and economic globalization. Further, in the long run, we find that India's export performance is influenced by economic globalization, GDP per capita and relative price. However, in the short run, export performance is influenced by economic globalization, relative price, NEER and GDP per capita. In the short run, 1% increase in economic globalization will lead to increase in the volume of export by 0.77%; whereas, in the long run, it is 3.40%. Hence, sustainability of export in the long run is a matter of concern for policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to assess employee emotional responses of organizations undergoing Mergers and Acquisitions and middle‐level manager role in managing these emotional responses in the post‐acquisition phase. The study is empirical in which a total of 215 responses from middle managers, involved in six Mergers and Acquisitions, were considered. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire containing standard scales of employee emotions during change, and middle manager role tested in other change contexts. The psychometric properties of the measures are established before testing the hypotheses. The results indicated that middle managers involvement in the strategy could enhance their commitment, which can reduce resistance to change and smoother integration. The results highlighted the importance of leveraging the middle manager role, given the post‐merger phase's criticality to achieve the desired synergies. One of the fundamental strengths of the paper is the rigors undertaken in selecting the companies representing an apt radical change context to test the theory of emotional balancing. The application of the concept of emotional balancing in the radical change context of Mergers and Acquisitions and its empirical validation is an original contribution to the field of knowledge in change management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to determine the strategic perspective of entrepreneurship among women‐owned enterprises in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), India, in light of entrepreneurial and strategic orientations. To check the hypotheses, the authors used primary data collected from a sample of 438 women entrepreneurs of J&K. After the data collection and filtration, statistical tools like factor analyses and structural equation modeling were used. It was found that women entrepreneurs in J&K highly consider innovativeness, proactiveness, risk‐taking abilities, aggressive competitiveness, and autonomy in their enterprises. They take decisions strategically, network with their stakeholders, and exploit their resources strategically in the exhibition of strategic entrepreneurship which involves dimensions of both entrepreneurial and strategic orientations. Leadership, in all its forms, portrayed insignificant results in the present study. This study has presented that the entrepreneurship type prevalent in the region of J&K might be considered more of sustenance than innovative or any other stronger forms. Due to this reason, its contribution to the economy of the state has been insignificant so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impact of promoters and institutional investors' equity ownership on the firm performance in the Indian context. Using a sample of 1583 firms during 2010–2019, our results suggest a positive relation between promoter ownership and firm performance, supporting the alignment effect, where the interests of promoters and managers align in the same direction. On the one hand, our results support the global advantage hypothesis in that the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) positively impact the firm performance, implying that the FIIs are vigilant shareholders, and actively monitor the firm performance. On the other hand, we reject the hometown advantage hypothesis since the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) like banks and other financial institutions are found to have negative relation with firm performance. Overall, we conclude that shareholding pattern does affect the firm performance. Our results are insensitive to various robustness tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the differential preferences towards corporate‐governance and other firm‐level characteristics by Domestic‐Institutional‐Investors (DIIs) and Foreign‐institutional‐investors (FIIs) in the Indian context. We use data across 25,065 firm‐years on institutional holding and deploy a series of univariate tests, a two‐stage Fama–Mcbeth regression and a discrete‐choice‐model for analysis. We substantiate our results from the main analysis using a series of robustness tests. Our results highlight some common preferences and dislikes among these institutional investors. Both FIIs and DIIs prefer larger firms with higher liquidity, which pay higher dividends and generate higher ROE. They both dislike expensive (high P‐B) stocks and stocks with high variability in earnings. However, there are also some visible differences in FII and DII preferences with respect to firm‐level traits like corporate‐governance, age, Tobin's‐Q and leverage. The institutional preferences are found to be sticky and do not change across market cycles. The findings could be of value to policymakers in India and, by extension, other emerging countries in understanding and regulating institutional inflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transgender community/communities (Henceforth, referred to as TGC) has been facing numerous hardships and challenges, which subsequently acts as a deterrent in their social, cultural and economic development. Education, which acts as an emancipation for all social evils is also quite very low for these communities. In this context, the paper seeks to understand the educational rights for the TGC in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans and elephants have shared social, historical and ecological relations for ages. However, their interactions have not been as pleasant as one would like that to be. Although the problems associated with human‐elephant conflict (HEC) are widely known, the increasing rate and extent of conflicts suggest that improved strategies are required to promote their co‐existence. Several measures such as compensation for loss of lives and livelihood, deployment of deterrents, erection of fences to restrict the movements, promotion of conservation education to reduce antagonism, preservation of forests and habitation, etc. have been adopted extensively to mitigate human‐elephant conflict and foster coexistence. Despite persistent efforts, the problem refuses to wither away. Stakeholders' perceptions and attitudes also vary widely across the categories. Many studies show that the impacts of human‐elephant conflict penetrate far deeper than the immediate threats from each other. This paper attempts to understand the plurality of stakeholders' connect with elephants, their perceptions, effectiveness of existing mitigation strategies and future of their coexistence, drawing from empirical data. On the basis of inputs from key informants, focus group discussions among community members and Forest Department officials and field observations from one of the migratory elephant corridors of India, we locate mixed perspectives from various stakeholders and their experiences and responses to human‐elephant conflict which, as we envisage, will go a long way in designing participatory and community‐based mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil erosion is recognised as a significant problem for agriculture in India. The Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India identifies Telangana as one of the most affected states in India due to soil erosion, with about 26% of total geographical area degraded due to soil erosion. The objective of this paper is to find out how farmers perceive soil erosion severity in Telangana, India. The study is based on a survey of 400 households in two sub‐watershed areas. The estimates based on ordered probit model suggest that farmers' perceptions about soil erosion correspond well with the degree of soil erosion expected from site‐specific factors such as the slope of the plot, soil depth, soil texture, road connectivity and irrigation. Further, the farmers' perceptions tally with the plot level conservation measures undertaken. The findings from the study also corroborate a number of similar empirical studies from different parts of the world. Given this finding, it is argued that farmers' expertise is important to assessing soil erosion severity, as they add relevant plot‐level information to assessments made through secondary sources. The study findings further highlight the need to apply participatory approaches when working to reduce soil erosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public investment through its long term benefits is one of the significant contributors to agricultural growth in India. Despite the fact, the public sector investment in Indian agriculture declined over the years and the researchers have considered increasing input subsidy as the main cause of its decline. This paper tries to empirically examine the claim that input subsidy discourages public investment in Indian agriculture. Applying an "auto‐regressive distributive lag" (ARDL) model to time‐series data at the national level and panel‐ARDL model to sub‐national level panel data the study confirms that input subsidies do negatively affect public investment in Indian agriculture and results in discouraging the public sector investment. Therefore, the policy implication of the study suggests that for more efficient and sustainable growth in Indian agriculture, the need of the hour is the careful analysis of all these input subsidies and gradual removal of unproductive ones so as to make resources available for farm investment in social and physical infrastructure. This may help to accelerate and sustain the growth dynamics of Indian agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The productivity and growth of an organization depend on the attrition rate of its workforce. The low workforce attrition rate increases the competency of an organization. Although there are numerous studies on employee retention, human resource managers are still struggling to hold their employees for a longer time. This paper studies the mediating role of growth needs and job satisfaction on independent construct deficiency needs and dependent construct talent retention for talent sustainability. The judgemental sampling technique was adopted to interview 414 employees of different BPOs and Call Centres situated in Delhi NCR through a self‐administered questionnaire. Mediation analysis was performed with the help of Smart PLS‐SEM 3.0. The deficiency needs have an insignificant impact on talent retention, whereas the path deficiency needs, mediated by growth needs and job satisfaction, have a greater and significant impact on talent retention. Finding suggests that growth needs and job satisfaction help to retain talented employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to investigate the nature and extent of sustainability reporting practices of top 100 National Stock Exchange (NSE) listed companies in India. Further, this paper also analyses the difference in sustainability reporting practices of companies based on the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) reporting, ownership structure and industry type. Data were collected from the sustainability report (SR), business responsibility report, CSR report and annual report of the companies for the year ended 2017–2018 and 2018–2019. Content analysis of the reports, Independent sample t test and Cohen's d research techniques were used for data analysis. Notwithstanding the uniform disclosure norm, the results suggest an inconsistency in sustainability reporting practices of the companies. It was found that GRI reporting companies have significantly higher sustainability disclosure than non‐GRI reporting companies in India. Contrary to prior studies, the result indicates the absence of a statistically significant difference in sustainability reporting practices of government‐owned corporations and private companies. The results provide several practical implications for regulators, government, policymakers and companies. Findings suggest companies should move beyond compliance of regulatory norms and adopt sustainability code of conduct (i.e., GRI, UNGC principles, SDGs Mapping) to improve sustainability reporting practices. Policymakers and regulators should broaden the scope of existing disclosure norms (National Voluntary Guidelines) to further improve sustainability reporting in India. The present study is one of the first of its kind to investigate the nature and extent of sustainability reporting practices of NSE listed companies' post‐disclosure reforms in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The macro stress testing is an integral part of the credit risk management exercise to judge the strength of banks in hypothetical stress situations. The present paper develops the macroeconomic stress testing model and checks the resilience of banks across different groups of banks in India like the public sector, private, and foreign banks in maintaining the minimum required regulatory capital at the time of stress situations. The stress testing exercise is undertaken by the use of panel data models to evaluate the impact of likely changes in macro parameters on the non‐performing loans under three stress scenarios like baseline, medium, and severe. The impact of these stress testing is substantial for the public sector banks as compared to private and foreign banks. Except for the few banks, all other public sector banks are not able to sustain the macro stress scenarios and became insolvent. In opposite to this, all the foreign banks are able to sustain all the stress scenarios. The private banks are also able to withstand the assumed crisis, except few banks failed to do so. The study may be useful for studying the preparedness of banks to face the crisis period and also helps them to get themselves equipped with the required capital to meet those circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is not a history of cartography but focuses on the interlinkages between British rulers and decisions for shaping inadvertent borderlands, through imperial supremacy and spatial knowledge. In this sense, the paper fills in a gap in the geographical history of India's unique borderland that holds a useful key to "cultural" and "geopolitical understandings" of south Asia and its impressions on modern Indo‐Nepal ties. The theme of the study is to analyze the chronological decisions and rationale of "historical faults" in the implementation by a colonial power in marshalling all available resources in surveying, mapping, and demarcating India's only open border as the ever‐shifting "turbulent frontier" that attracted imperial concern for peace and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To boost the manufacturing sector, India announced a highly ambitious scheme Make in India in 2014. The scheme aims to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub by fostering innovation, facilitate investment and build best in class manufacturing infrastructure. The scheme envisioned to increase the share of the manufacturing sector to the GDP to 25% and create 100 million new jobs by 2025. Another prime objective of the plan was to attract foreign direct investment in the Indian manufacturing sector. The government identified 25 industries in the manufacturing sector. Several steps were undertaken to publicise the campaign both domestically and internationally. The government allocated around Rs. 1821.5 Cr since the launch of the scheme. But, after the six years of its launch, the scheme has made little impact on the economy. The scheme could neither increase the share of the manufacturing sector in GDP nor could attract any significant volume of FDI in the manufacturing sector. In this backdrop, this study attempts to assess the performance of the scheme. The paper also attempts to investigate the factors that hindered its success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weaving machinery is a sine qua non for fabric manufacturing because the former lies in the heart of the process of generation and diffusion of technological change in the latter. Nevertheless, the technological change in India's weaving machinery manufacturing, measured by patent count, is seen to be very dismal. The technological catch‐up model examines this dismal technological change. The model maps out two important building blocks—technological regimes and demand conditions—to explain the technological change in the weaving machinery manufacturing. This paper underscores that demand conditions, which is found to have relied largely on cost edge, is very crucial in explaining the entire process of technological obsolescence in the weaving machinery manufacturing. Further, it unravels that the restrictions on organised weaving mills during the mid‐1950s through the mid‐1980s and the liberal import policy since 1991 are found to have worsened the demand conditions in the domestic weaving machinery manufacturing, and thereby worsening the technological efforts and technological change in the weaving machinery manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examined the relationship between renewable and non‐renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions in India by taking disaggregated data from 1965 to 2018. In order to determine the effect of long‐run elasticity of independent variables on dependent variables, we have used ARDL bound testing approach. The directions of causality of the variables are investigated by Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality test. The long‐run results reveal that hydro energy consumption has a positive impact on CO2 emissions but not significant. However, nuclear energy consumption indicates that there is a negative effect on CO2 emissions. It reveals that all non‐renewable energy consumption sources have positive and significant effect on CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the long run relationship between public debt and economic growth in India for the period 1980–2018 using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. The bounds test results suggest that gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, internal and external public debt, fixed investment and trade openness are cointegrated implying the existence of a long run equilibrium relationship between these variables. We find that both internal and external public debt have significant negative effect on economic growth in the long run whereas, investment has significant positive effect on the growth rate of output per capita. The error‐correction model shows that the long run equilibrium relationship is stable and the adjustment towards equilibrium is relatively high. Our findings suggest that too much reliance on public debt must be discouraged since it has adverse effect on economic growth in the long run. The government should adopt investment‐supportive policies to enhance economic growth of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explains a novel glide path to model the stock prices of five major commercial banks in India. The purpose of this work is concerned with identifying the macroeconomic drivers of stock prices of five core banks listed in NIFTY50 index, namely, SBI, HDFC, ICICI, INDUSIND and KOTAK MAHINDRA, and to test their stability during periods of fiscal tension. The study utilized a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the respective stock prices and has proceeded with the multivariate method to make the required predictions. The choice of statistical technique primarily consists of decomposing the respective stock prices of the five banks using PCA and then selecting one optimal Principal Component (PC1). A multivariate regression model is employed to predict the optimal PC of such stock prices in which PC1 is the dependent variable and NIFTY50 and INR‐USD is the independent variables. Ultimately, the optimal PC is returned to the stock prices of the corresponding levels. The model is set up to be performed comfortably and the hardiness of the model is supported from various selection criteria; particular, the model assumption testing, goodness of fit, sample stressed period (using Rolling Average method on Indian VIX: 2008:Q1 to 2009:Q2) testing and out of sample performance. In addition to this, the estimated results are consistent with Monte‐Carlo simulation results. The envisioned model satisfies the model objective, while sufficiently capturing the historical dynamics of the stock prices as reflected by various performance indicators (RMSE, MAPE, RMSE over standard deviation) presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (FRA), 2006 is framed to undo the "historical injustice" suffered by communities living or dependent on the forest resources of India. The act for the first time recognized customary rights of indigenous forest‐dwelling communities over the forest. The underlined idea is to achieve inclusive development, where the most marginalized community can have a say in the process of development. The paper looks into the issues in relation to implementation of the act in the background of last year's Indian Supreme Court Judgment. It investigates into the process of the emergence of the act. It reviews the range of forest rights deprivations in the act and how they came about. For instance how over emphasis is given to recognize individual forest rights other than community forest rights and community forest resources rights. It seeks to investigate how in‐spite of operational limitations, the act has significant implication on the livelihood of forest dwellers and the conservation of forests. In the long run an effective and comprehensive FRA has potential in achieving larger goal of inclusive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic has created an unprecedented loss and disruptions over all across the world. From developed to developing, no country has been spared from its brunt. In this paper, we have analyzed the implications of COVID‐19 on the economy and society of India so far. An impact assessment on the basis of available lietrature is made on all the three sectors—primary, secondary and service sector along with the impact on migrants, health, poverty, job losses, informal sector, environment, and so forth. The all sectors of the economy has been disproportionately affected and even within a sector, there is a disproportionate loss. The societal impacts are dire too with job losses, mental illness, increased domestic violence, and so forth. Some positive effects can be seen in terms of improved air quality, water quality, wildlife but the sustainability of such impact is conditional upon post‐COVID and people's habits and future policies related to the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]