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Undernutrition among children under the age of five remains untracked in India. One in five children are undernourished even in Kerala, a developed south Indian state well known for its egalitarian development. The aim of this paper is to understand the social, economic, and political dimensions of undernutrition among children of age 6–60 months belonging to low socioeconomic households in Kerala. 468 children (50% girls) were surveyed. The prevalence of stunting, underweight, and wasting among the study children were 25.6%, 24.4%, and 14.4%, respectively. Acute illnesses, underweight of mothers, low standard of living, and not utilizing Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and Public Distribution System (PDS) increased the risk of children being undernourished. The study found that children below 5 years from low socioeconomic strata had a higher risk of being undernourished, proving the vicious cycle of poverty and undernutrition. The association between the nutritional statuses of mothers and children indicates the vulnerability of multiple members from poor households to be malnourished. The utilization of ICDS and PDS was found to improve nutritional status and hence, the state has to ensure that the benefits of these initiatives are reaching the neediest in adequate quantity and quality. Key points: Children below 5 years from low socioeconomic strata in Kerala had a higher risk of being undernourished.The link between mothers' and children's nutritional statuses highlights the importance of measuring nutritional status within the household unit.Non‐utilization of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and Public Distribution System (PDS) increased the risk of children being undernourished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review paper aims at an in‐depth analysis of the challenges, opportunities, and status of fodder production in India. A comprehensive review of available literature and various reports by govt. as well as non govt. organizations have been done as part of the methodology for preparing the manuscript. India caters to approximately 20% of the world's livestock population and about 17.5% of the human population on just 2.3% of the world's land area. The human population is increasing at a pace of 1.6% per annum, while the livestock population is increasing at a rate of 0.66% per year. Theses increasing human and animal populations are fighting tooth and nail for land resources for food and fodder production, respectively. As a result, cultivated fodders occupy only 4% of the entire cultivable land in the country. Presently, the country faces a net shortfall of 35.6% green fodder, 10.5% dry crop leftovers, and 44% concentrate feed ingredients. The option for increasing land area under fodder cultivation is very limited. Hence, it is big challenge in front of us to utilize the available meagre land wisely with its fullest potential to produce the fodders for the animals. Which could be achieved by adopting suitable cropping systems, incorporation of fodder crops in food and other cash crop‐based cropping systems on rotational basis, production of fodder on degraded lands by adopting fodder‐based agro forestry systems and exploring other options of green fodder like azolla. The cropping system with forage crops provides a potential alternative to overcome the fodder problem as it utilizes the resources more efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the association among energy consumption, carbon‐dioxide emission, and India's economic growth along with supplemental variables including foreign direct investment, population density, inflation, and agricultural land. An autoregressive distributive lag model is applied over annual time‐series data from 1985 to 2019. Further, the robustness and novelty of the model are confirmed by applying fully modified ordinary‐least‐square, dynamic ordinary‐least‐square, canonical co‐integrating regression, variance decomposition, and impulse response function. The analysis results indicate that a cointegration association exists among variables. In the short run, the profound determinants of economic development are energy consumption, carbon‐dioxide emission, inflation, and agricultural land. In the long run, both inflation and agricultural land significantly negatively influence economic growth while carbon emission drives a positive impact. Interestingly, a one‐way Granger causality runs from economic growth towards energy consumption, carbon emission, and agricultural land. The new research presents a comprehensive understanding of economic growth indicators, aiding policymakers, and advancing existing literature. Consequently, as a recommendation, the policymakers should constitute explicit goals for renewable energy consumption to stimulate sustainable economic growth with carbon emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to compare the relative influence of migrant and indigenous entrepreneurs on regional development in the eastern state of Odisha in a developing country like India. The data is based on ownership across 30 districts and ten different sectors for small and medium businesses. It is modeled on economic indicators such as Net District Domestic Product (NDDP) and employment generation at the district level. One‐way ANOVA and multiple linear regression on the data set suggest that ownership pattern influences development indices differently, hence having policy‐level implications based on the goals to be achieved. While migrant entrepreneurs' impact NDDP and employment opportunities positively for main workers, indigenous entrepreneurs from Odisha positively influence employment opportunities at an overall level, and for marginal workers, everything else remains unchanged. Hence, during slowdowns or post‐pandemic recovery situations, when the need of the hour for the local government is immediate employment and livelihood for low‐skill‐based marginal workers, facilitating indigenous owners is more preferred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the outcomes of an analysis on day by day task‐journey planning conduct of senior citizens by utilizing a modern dynamic model and a family unit travel overview, gathered in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, of India in 2018. The task journey planning display assumes a unique time–space‐constrained planning development. The main commitment of the article is to reveal day by day task‐journey planning conduct through a comprehensive dynamic framework. Numerous behavioural subtleties are revealed by the subsequent empirical model. These incorporate the role that income plays in directing outside time consumption decisions of senior citizens. Senior citizens in the most elevated and least salary classes will, in general, have minor varieties in time consumption decisions than those in middle pay classifications. Generally speaking, the time consumption decisions become progressively steady with expanding age, demonstrating that more task durations and lower task recurrence become progressively predominant with increasing age. Day by day task type and area decisions reveal a reasonable irregular utility‐amplifying level headed conduct of senior residents. Unmistakably expanding spatial availability to different task areas is an urgent factor in characterizing every day outside task interest of senior residents. It is likewise evident that the assorted variety of outside task type decisions decreases with the increase in age and senior citizens are more sensitive to auto journey hour than to travel or non‐mechanised journey hour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 crisis has translated into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis for the poor and marginalized groups in society. The countrywide lockdowns, quarantine measures, and mobility restrictions across 200 countries of the world have resulted in a host of negative manifestations for women. There have been unprecedented losses in the informal economy, which is dominated by women. Some scholars also contend that the pandemic will translate into heightened burden of unpaid domestic work, loss of economic autonomy and disruption to maternal health services. Despite these factors a gendered perspective is absent in the policy response to this crisis. It is against this background that the present paper employed a feminist intersectionality lens to conduct participatory field based research on the lived experiences of women in informal employment in Indian Punjab during the COVID‐19 crisis. The research unearthed the specific pathways through which existing socio‐economic inequities rooted in caste, class and occupational entities magnify the vulnerabilities experienced by women during such a health crisis. The research offers a contextualized framework for understanding the gendered impacts of the crisis. It also highlights the urgency of taking account of gender specific constraints during the health crisis so as to institute robust, effective and equitable policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present community‐anchored counterstorytelling as a form of epistemic justice. We—the Miya Community Research Collective—engage in counterstorytelling as a means of resisting and disrupting dehumanization of Miya communities in Northeast India. Miya communities have a long history of dispossession and struggle – from forced displacement by British colonial rulers in the early 19th century to the present where they face imminent threats of statelessness. Against this backdrop, we theorize "in the flesh" to interrogate knowledges and representations systematically deployed to dispossess Miya people. Simultaneously, we uplift stories and endeavors that (re)humanize Miya people, creating/claiming cultural, knowledge, and political spaces that center peoples' struggles and resistance. Across these stories, we offer counterstorytelling as a powerful mode of recentering knowledges from the margins—a decolonial alternative to neoliberal epistemes that maintain institutions/universities as centers of knowledge production. [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 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

In global atmospheric modeling, the differences between nonhydrostatic (NH) and hydrostatic (H) dynamical cores are negligible in dry simulations when grid spacing is larger than 10 km. However, recent studies suggest that those differences can be significant at far coarser resolution when moisture is included. To better understand how NH and H differences manifest in global fields, we perform and analyze an ensemble of 28 and 13 km seasonal simulations with the NH and H dynamical cores in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model global atmosphere model, where the differences between H and NH configurations are minimized. A set of idealized rising bubble experiments is also conducted to further investigate the differences. Although NH and H differences are not significant in global statistics and zonal averages, significant differences in precipitation amount and patterns are observed in parts of the tropics. The most prominent differences emerge near India and the Western Pacific in the boreal summer, and the central‐southern Indian Ocean and Pacific in the boreal winter. Tropical differences influence surrounding regions through modification of the regional circulation and can propagate to the extratropics, leading to significant temperature and geopotential differences over the middle to high latitudes. While the dry bubble experiments show negligible deviation between H and NH dynamics until grid spacing is below 6.25 km, precipitation amount and vertical velocity are different in the moist case even at 25 km resolution. Plain Language Summary: This paper compares the nonhydrostatic and hydrostatic dynamical cores in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model global atmosphere model. The rainfall difference between the two dynamical cores is noticeable at 28 km resolution, which is much coarser than the conclusions in the traditional studies. The difference maxima are located over the tropical oceans where the moist processes amplify the difference. The difference maxima in summer and winter emerge over different locations indicating season variations. Key Points: Experiments are performed to compare the hydrostatic (H) and nonhydrostatic (NH) dynamic cores in the Simple Cloud‐Resolving Energy Exascale Earth System Model Atmosphere ModelRegions with significant differences between H and NH dynamical cores are identifiedThe physical mechanisms driving these differences are investigated [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity narratives enhance the understanding of women's leadership, but there exist very few in‐depth analyses of negative identity tensions that influence agency. In this study, we examine the negative identity tensions of well‐to‐do women from small towns in India, who hold two leadership positions: organizational and social movement. We borrow from the discourse on well‐to‐do women's participation in social movements in India to draw on the notions of identity, perceptions of feminism, and patriarchal challenge. Our data are derived from 49 in‐depth interviews with women leaders. Findings from qualitative analysis and creation of a composite narrative show that negative identity tensions arising from two leadership positions are gendered in nature. Furthermore, agency is (i) contingent on one's reflection on challenges, (ii) rooted in an underlying principle, and (iii) practiced through the mechanisms of "managing femininity," a concept that is widely discussed in the Western paradigms of postfeminism and neoliberalism. This paper contributes to the feminist dialog on the global South in the context of gender, class, and geographical location intersection by revealing certain non‐Western ways of managing femininity. However, in the process, the hegemony of Indian men remains intact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying granitoids can provide important knowledge on the composition of continental crust and the geodynamic processes of continental growth. Nevertheless, the mechanisms of granitoids formation during continental collision remain uncertain. In this paper, we present new zircon U–Pb–Hf isotope and whole‐rock Sr–Nd isotope compositions, and major‐ and trace‐element data for granitoids from the Chacangka area of the central Lhasa Terrane, southern Tibet. The Chacangka quartz monzonites crystallized at ca. 61 Ma, whereas the monzonites and granites were emplaced at ca. 51 Ma. The quartz monzonites are peraluminous and have high 87Sr/86Sri ratios (0.7129–0.7131), and their low εNd(t) (−7.65 to −7.10) and zircon εHf(t) (−9.3 to −7.5) values are more depleted than those of ancient crustal basement beneath the central Lhasa Terrane, which suggests that they originated from a mixed source of juvenile and ancient lower crust. Compared with the quartz monzonites, the monzonites have much higher contents of MgO (2.34–3.62 wt%) and values of Mg# (42.3–46.3) and zircon εHf(t) (−6.9 to 1.9) and show more depleted Sr–Nd isotopes, indicating that more juvenile materials were involved in their source. The granites have Sr–Nd isotope compositions that are similar to those of the coeval monzonites but have higher SiO2 contents, lower CaO and MgO contents, and lower values of Mg#, suggesting that they were differentiates of the monzonites. The elemental and isotopic compositions of the Chacangka granitoids exhibit a marked transformation from 61 to 51 Ma, probably indicating breakoff of the Neo‐Tethyan oceanic slab. The Neo‐Tethyan slab breakoff not only induced the upwelling of deep material and eruption of magma but also caused re‐melting and destruction of ancient crustal basement of the central Lhasa Terrane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thyroid hormones are essential for all the metabolic and reproductive activities with significance to growth, and neuron development in the human body. The thyroid hormone dysfunction has many ill consequences, affecting the human population; thereby being a global epidemic. It is noticed that every one in 10 persons suffer from different thyroid disorders in India. In recent years, many researchers have implemented various disease predictive models based on Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Increasing the accuracy of disease classification is a critical and challenging task. To increase the accuracy of classification, in this paper, we propose a hybrid optimization algorithm‐based feature selection design for thyroid disease classifier with rough type‐2 fuzzy support vector machine. This work uses the hybrid optimization algorithm, which combines the firefly algorithm (FA) and butterfly optimization algorithm (BOA) to select the top‐n features. The proposed hybrid firefly butterfly optimization‐rough type‐2 fuzzy support vector machine (HFBO‐RT2FSVM) is evaluated with several key metrics such as specificity, accuracy, and sensitivity. We compare our approach with well‐known benchmark methods such as improved grey wolf optimization linear support vector machine (IGWO Linear SVM) and mixed‐kernel support vector machine (MKSVM) methods. From the experimental evaluations, we justify that our technique improves the accuracy by large thereby precise in identifying the thyroid disease. HFBO‐RT2FSVM model attained an accuracy of 99.28%, having specificity and sensitivity of 98 and 99.2%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantitatively analyzes the spatial heterogeneity of district‐level correlates of open defecation in rural India. We employ standard non‐spatial regression, spatially explicit regressions and multi‐scale geographically weighted regression to compare the stability of measurable correlates of open defecation across these different methods as well as across analyzed spatial units. Attributes like ownership of household assets, drinking water inaccessibility and prevalent literacy rates were identified as the most stable district‐level correlates of open defecation. Our results also demonstrated the relevance of our hypotheses about (a) possible negative sanitation externalities stemming from the co‐concentration of Scheduled Caste communities and other communities in densely populated rural districts, and (b) possible positive sanitation externalities stemming from the co‐concentration of Muslim and non‐Muslim communities in densely populated districts. Overall, however, our analyses demonstrate notable spatial clustering and significant spatial non‐stationarity of examined variables. Therefore, in our opinion, research findings that ignore spatial heterogeneity of sanitation drivers provide incomplete information for policy development and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WhatsApp and digital private spaces are transforming the quality of lived democracy in India today. Bringing together STS, geographies of democracy, digital and political anthropology, and feminist approaches to the home, this paper makes visible how the Silicon Valley imaginary of the "digital living room" is domesticated in India. Drawing on digital ethnographic research in urban north India we show how WhatsApp is being used by the Hindu right to digitise new party‐political intimacies. This has implications for how people at the margins of Hindu nationalist politics dwell in the "digital living room". Framed as a home like space, we problematise Facebook's "spatiotechnical" utopia by making visible how kinship and (domestic) politics are newly entangled in digital private spaces. Finally, we document how WhatsApp is deployed as a technology of discipline to determine modes of appropriate sociality and reconfigure spaces of digital‐physical inclusion/exclusion in the making of India's "ethnic democracy". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature of India and the US relations. The relations between two the states have improved in the post−/11 era. The willingness of the US to provide India political support at the regional and global level is one aspect that resulted in changing the nature of that relationship. Second, growing defense ties both in conventional and nonconventional sectors fundamentally galvanized the nature of that relationship. This paper further analyzes the geopolitical compulsion of both states to counter various state and non‐state actors' threats such as China's increasing maritime presence in the Indian Ocean region and terrorism. Moreover, this discussion argues about the political, strategic, commercial aspects of the strategic partnership till date. Much part of this paper analyzes what is the nature of this relationship and how it developed? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Due to its speed, accuracy and cost‐effectiveness, microscopy has become an integral part of clinical examination for disease diagnosis. However, modern microscopes are very costly and require skilled personnel for their operation and maintenance, and specimen processing and analysis is labour‐intensive. Further, lack of such expensive diagnostic tools in remote areas is a serious concern. Affordable point‐of‐care diagnostic tools are the most useful for timely disease diagnosis and management. The Foldscope is an affordable origami‐based microscopy device composed of a series of paper clippings, which, upon assembly, can hold a specimen slide for observation, and this specimen can be viewed via a mobile phone camera attached to it. The present study evaluated the use of the Foldscope in the clinical diagnosis of oral and urinary tract infections and evaluated its efficacy as a motivational tool for improving oral health among school children in India. We qualitatively compared the Foldscope to a clinical microscope by examining five different types of clinical samples. Of the different types of clinical samples, the Foldscope was effective in detecting infection in dental plaque samples and urine samples. Thus, we further analysed 31 dental plaque samples of patients aged 3–13 years and 25 urine samples of patients aged 11–62 years. We also evaluated the use of the Foldscope as an educational tool for motivating oral hygiene among 80 school children aged 12 years and found that students in the Foldscope intervention group had better measures of oral hygiene than did students in the nonintervention group. In summary, our study indicated that the Foldscope is useful in detecting urinary tract infections and kidney stones in urine samples and is a useful motivational tool for oral health education among school‐aged children. Furthermore, it may also be useful in oral health monitoring in resource poor settings. Lay Description: Poor and remote population often suffers due to lack of capacity to buy products or avail services which are expensive. In such a society people are not able to afford even the basic detection of diseases. Foldscope may come to rescue here! Foldscope is a paper‐based, use‐and‐throw, affordable microscope. This study explores the use of Foldscope in clinics and diseases diagnosis using patient samples. Preliminary detection of disease associated symptoms in dental and urinary infections and digital record keeping via storage in mobile phone memory and hospital OPD records for monitoring patient's health are some of the advantages of Foldscope for clinical use in resource poor settings. It identifies that Foldscope not only can be used by students or teachers for educational purposes but it can also pave a path for promotion of dental hygiene among young children. The study also suggests that further improvement in design or resolution of Foldscope will broaden the scope of its application, in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intersexuality, particularly in the global South, remains an under‐researched field of study. In my in‐progress doctoral research project, I explore the cultural, social, and medical discourses that influence how key stakeholders such as healthcare providers make decisions about the sex and gender assignment of the intersex child in India. In this paper I interrogate some of these ideas around gender assignment of intersex people in India, paying particular attention to the context of son preference. I am interested in exploring how decisions of gender assignment by medical professionals are guided by ideas of son preference. Focusing on four qualitative, semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews across two cities with medical doctors from different specializations, this paper is a preliminary attempt to examine some of the factors that guide medical professionals in making decisions about gender assignment of intersex children and explore the dynamics of the decision‐making process. Specifically, I explore the factors that inform doctors' decision‐making and locate these decision‐making processes within the broader socio‐cultural context of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many of the ex‐colonies of European empires, biometric technology systems are being built under an ethos of welfare and financial service delivery. One case in this broader trend of postcolonial governance is India's Aadhaar and India Stack. This paper uses this case to explore how the in‐sourcing of technology into means of governing, behind a front of participatory "good governance," is contributing to the historical trajectory of citizenship regimes in India. Through claims of reducing financial "leakages," Aadhaar, a biometric identification database consisting of fingerprint, iris scan, and photograph, has become compulsory for accessing welfare in India. The Indian government makes a case for Aadhaar using a propaganda discourse of its success, based on weak evidence. The India Stack, a set of cloud‐based application programming interfaces (APIs) built on top of the Aadhaar database, offers a digital infrastructure for private companies to verify identities using Aadhaar data and to offer other "services" including "financial services." The ability to access data, paired with a "revolving door" of individuals between state and corporations, points to an ulterior goal of both Aadhaar and the India Stack: creating winners in the corporate and financial technology sectors. The Indian corporate‐state run through a "governtrepreneurism" uses Aadhaar and the India Stack as new digital technologies of governmentality to transform populations into subjects or customers. This paper uses the case of Aadhaar, a biometric identification database consisting of fingerprint, iris scan, and photograph, and the India Stack, a set of cloud‐based application programming interfaces (APIs) built on top of the Aadhaar database, to explore how the in‐sourcing of technology into means of governing is contributing to the historical trajectory of citizenship regimes in India. It argues that Aadhaar and the India Stack manifest as new technologies of governmentality, pushing populations further into a status of subjects or customers of the Indian state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars argue that collective action is possible if and only if rebel groups can solve their dilemma of non‐participation. This paper examines whether opportunity can help resolve the rebel's dilemma and increase participation in collective action. Scholars contend that presence of representative government provides many solutions to the rebel's dilemma. In this paper, the author tests the validity of this argument in the present times. Using a mid‐level theory of opportunity and willingness on panel data of 28 Indian states from 2001–2012, results show that an open political system does not automatically signal opportunity for rioting. Risk is significant only when there is a willingness to use the opportunity. An interaction of the political opportunity and willingness to riot reduces the rebel's dilemma of non‐participation, thereby increasing the risk of violent collective action. Interestingly, some old predictors of collective action like wealth, education, and youth bulge do not find support here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh and India exchanged all of their 162 border enclaves in 2015 after 70 years of protracted negotiations. This paper offers an explanation as to why these enclaves were exchanged and why it took so long for the exchange to be executed. In so doing, I offer the concept of "symbolic spaces" to demonstrate that in postcolonial South Asia, enclaves gained oversized significance in nationalistic and territorial discourses. Such elevated significance effectively turned them into symbols of nationalism and territoriality, which played the major role in both their existence and their exchange. In explaining the exchange, I also contend that, although rare, states may exchange territories if it serves significant geopolitical and geo‐economic interests for the parties involved and if the exchange can be portrayed as a victory for the nation. This paper explains why the border enclaves of India and Bangladesh were exchanged. In so doing, it argues that these were symbolic spaces that overpassed their significance in the nationalistic discourses of these two states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on gendered politics of the field has delved into the practices of accompaniment and its implications on research and knowledge production, particularly through the case of researchers' children and partners. In comparison, the tendency to seek assistance from parents is neglected within the scholarship. Drawing on the PhD fieldwork experiences of two researchers in their "native" country, specifically a Sri Lankan researcher conducting fieldwork in Sri Lanka and a North Indian scholar researching in South India, the paper reveals parents' contribution to the research process, in terms of enhancing researcher credibility, facilitating contact‐making and access, and providing emotional and practical care. The discussion illuminates two aspects of parents' involvement in fieldwork: (1) how the unique nature of parent–child relationships shapes the research process at multiple stages, and (2) how the gendered notions of knowledge production result in parents' contributions being typically unacknowledged. The paper emphasises that a researcher's positionality as a daughter shapes her ability to navigate gendered field sites in her "native" country and is implicated in the wider research process. This paper will illuminate why researchers take their parents to field sites and how this strategy helps them to negotiate gendered challenges in the field. Despite the benefits of parental accompaniment, parents' roles are frequently underplayed. This invisibility of certain actors' contributions to the research process reveals the gendered politics of knowledge construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to government‐sponsored health insurance schemes (GSHIS), many microfinance institutions (MFIs) and community‐based organizations (CBOs) in India have started microinsurance health insurance schemes. These include health mutuals for the benefit of their members. This article explores these as an alternative health‐financing model in India. A literature search produced 926 relevant publications. After applying advanced search options and removing duplicates, abstracts of 324 papers were read and then 47 papers reviewed, and finally 29 were included in this review. Five key themes emerged: (1) "Health for all" arguments and opportunities in favour of micro health insurance schemes; (2) micro health insurance products; (3) impact of micro health insurance schemes; (4) systematic irregularities and regulatory framework; and (5) innovation. We also look at the emerging market patterns that will define micro health insurance products. Health mutuals can effectively provide mass health protection to the poor and not so poor through efficient business models, bespoke benefit packages and multiple payment plans. They can reduce financial vulnerability and improve health outcomes. While GSHIS can cover a substantial tranche of expected health‐related costs, the balance can be supplemented through innovative financial products that reduce financial risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To describe the nature and extent of the literature addressing the medical and its re/habilitative management of cerebral palsy (CP) in India.Method: Online worldwide scholarly databases, research hosting directories, Indian publishing houses, and grey literature were used to identify papers published between 2005 and 2016. We retrieved 144 English language papers that described the medical and rehabilitative management of Indian children with CP.Results: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research designs are published by a variety of health care professionals in India. Intervention (45%) and observational studies (30%) predominate. Outcomes were categorized using the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework, with body structure and function most reported and activity/participation least reported; 57% described its re/habilitation interventions and 43% were medical interventions.Interpretation: There is a substantial body of CP research in India that focuses on interventions to reduce impairments, with minimal attention given to activities and participation, environmental, and personal factors. Twenty-six per cent of studies are published in what appear to be 'predatory journals'. This paper serves as an alert about the presence of 'predatory journals' in medicine that may introduce publication bias, which can distort results reported in those studies individually, or from conclusions drawn in reviews that contain those studies.What This Paper Adds: Cerebral palsy research in India focuses on interventions to reduce impairment. Activities, participation, and environmental factors are minimally addressed. Quantitative studies are more common than qualitative studies. Many Indian studies are published in journals that are not indexed in worldwide databases of scholarly journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers return to field sites that are previously known in different capacities, thus upturning traditional notions of the "field," particularly in qualitative fieldwork, of unknown places whose depths the researcher encounters anew. Returning in a different capacity affects not just the researcher, but also participants, and raises questions about research ethics with regard to changing positionality. This paper looks at the process of returning to a field that is already "known," not just through books and writing, but through first‐hand experience. It explores the dynamics underlying the process of returning as a researcher, when one has a previously established identity in a place, in this case as a development worker. The paper will explore the nuances of attempting to bridge the divide between being a development worker and then a student doing ethnographic fieldwork in Assam. It will debate whether it is possible, or useful, to abandon one role for another. It also looks at the way a change in role affects the way we gain access, as well as how returning as a student reveals certain blind spots in the understanding of the field as it was known. Finally, the paper attempts to understand how changing positionality affects ethical concerns, such as those of how to engage as an outsider, and whether each return is marked by a different process. This paper looks at the "return" to a previously known field. It explores how this shift in positionality affects not just the researcher, but also participants, and brings up questions about research ethics with regard to changing positionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 15 years, "rights of nature" as a concept and legal apparatus has spread across various sites and scales of environmental governance throughout the world. This paper examines the rights of nature phenomenon, focusing on a recent decision by the High Court of Uttarakhand, India to grant legal personhood to the Ganga (Ganges) and Yamuna rivers and associated natural entities. Arguing against "diffusionist" and "global" approaches to understanding the rights of nature phenomenon, and drawing on the concept of translocal assemblages, I emphasise the place‐based specificities of these decisions in addition to their translocal connections. Through a close reading of the Uttarakhand case, I demonstrate the need to situate translocal social movements in place by attending to the manner in which "rights of nature" becomes articulated through specific practices, cultural meanings, material networks, human–environment relations, legal regimes, governance structures, and political projects in culturally and geographically specific ways with often counterintuitive outcomes. Rather than seeing "rights of nature" as a global movement or network manifesting at various scales, I consider it as a boundary object connecting translocal assemblages of environmental governance through acts of translation. In doing so, I push assemblage geographies to engage theoretical problems of difference, boundaries, and translation that have yet to be addressed in this emerging paradigm. In the last 15 years, "rights of nature" as a concept and legal apparatus has spread across various sites and scales of environmental governance throughout the world. This paper examines the rights of nature phenomenon, focusing on a recent decision by the High Court of Uttarakhand, India to grant legal personhood to the Ganga (Ganges) and Yamuna rivers. Arguing against "diffusionist" and "global" approaches to understanding the rights of nature phenomenon, I consider it as a boundary object connecting translocal assemblages of environmental governance through acts of translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has seen a sudden increase in the demand for healthcare organizations to improve their utilization of digital platforms to supplement the reach of conventional healthcare services. In the wake of this crisis, dentistry is on the cusp of a major overhaul, promoting preventive practices and a rapid shift to teledentistry platforms. A random push to adapt to teledentistry platforms may cause the straining of available resources and manpower, especially in sectors involved in the care of vulnerable population groups like children, individuals with special needs and those in the low socioeconomic strata. It is thus advisable to make this transition systematically, beginning with an analysis of feasibility, done periodically, to maximize efficiency. Described in this article is a system to facilitate this transition by utilizing a matrix model, laying foundation for assessment of feasibility based on target population characteristics. It calls for the improvement of population characteristics to reduce strain on the healthcare sector using key indicators of the model, paired against potential barriers, and is described using a case study from the field. Key points: • The concept model described in this paper lays foundation for assessment of the feasibility for tele‐dentistry platforms based on population characteristics. • Key indicators for assessing feasibility and suggestions for improvement have been highlighted against the barriers in each component of the model categories. • Applicability of this model has been described using a case study from an integrated platform for children and individuals with special health care needs, in South India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine prevalence, risk factors, and consequences of maternal severe thinness in India.Methods: This mixed methods study analyzed data from the Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 (2015-2016) to estimate the prevalence of and risk factors for severe thinness, followed by a desk review of literature from India.Results: Prevalence of severe thinness (defined by World Health Organization as body mass index [BMI] <16 in adult and BMI for age Z score < -2 SD in adolescents) was higher among pregnant adolescents (4.3%) compared with pregnant adult women (1.9%) and among postpartum adolescent women (6.3%) than postpartum adult women (2.4%) 2-6 months after delivery. Identified research studies showed prevalence of 4%-12% in pregnant women. Only 13/640 districts had at least three cases of severely thin pregnant women; others had lower numbers. Three or more postpartum women aged ≥20 years were severely thin in 32 districts. Among pregnant adolescents, earlier parity increased odds (OR 1.96; 95% CI, 1.18-3.27) of severe thinness. Access to household toilet facility reduced odds (OR 0.72; 95% CI, 0.52-0.99]. Among mothers aged ≥20 years, increasing education level was associated with decreasing odds of severe thinness (secondary: OR 0.74; 95% CI, 0.57-0.96 and Higher: OR 0.54; 95% CI, 0.32-0.91, compared with no education); household wealth and caste were also associated with severe thinness.Conclusion: This paper reveals the geographic pockets that need priority focus for managing severe thinness among pregnant women and mothers in India to limit the immediate and intergenerational adverse consequences emanating from these deprivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses method skew in India over more than two decades using a new method skew index. The analysis reveals clear regional pattern in method skew in the country. In north and east regions of the country, method skew is average and below average, but it is high or very high in the south region. We investigate roles of such factors as poverty, education, social class, and religion in deciding the method skew at the district level using the classification modeling approach and find that the roles of these factors are different in different regions of the country. An important finding of the analysis is that there is a positive correlation between the degree of the method skew and contraceptive prevalence at the district level. [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]

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 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]

Objective: Limited economic opportunity for women reduces their household bargaining power and the economic value of daughters, amplifying son preference. This paper studies India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the largest workfare program in the world. Methods: In a setting where the gender gap in employment and wages are sizeable, NREGS represented both an income shock and a large relative improvement in the labor market for women. We use the staggered rollout of NREGS to show that districts that implemented the program earlier experienced an improvement in child sex ratios in favor of girls. Results: We find that impacts exist only in rural areas, not in the urban counterparts of the same district, where NREGS did not operate. Furthermore, effects are larger in middle‐income and upper income districts and districts with the most skewed initial sex ratios, results which are inconsistent with an alternative selection story. Finally, the effects appear only for rural youth sex ratios, not for adult sex ratios, suggesting endogenous migration is not driving the results. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the adoption of NREGS may have decreased pressures associated with sex selection in India, lessening skewed sex ratios in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tracing the shifting historical and contemporary discourses of self‐representation among upper caste American Hindu immigrants, this paper reflects upon the rise of diaspora "Hindutva Democrats" in the post‐2020 American political landscape. What makes "Hindutva Democrats" a peculiar political embodiment is their manipulative use of the language of social justice for addressing racism in America while downplaying, if not outright refusing to acknowledge, glaring human rights abuses against minorities (for issues such as casteism and Islamophobia) in India and in the Indian diaspora. Together, these confounding and inconsistent political stances illuminate the problem of the neoliberalization of calls for racial justice, amplified by narratives of American exceptionalism and its favorable capitalist ties to India in the contemporary political landscape. This analysis of the Hindutva Democratic movement illuminates the ways in which performances of race, caste, and racialization are embedded in historical, institutional, and gendered ideological projects across borders. These performances create insidious impediments toward the achievement of the global human rights which are foundational to sustainable peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the special section on "Ecosystem Restoration in India: Status Quo and the Way Forward to Achieve Land Degradation Neutrality" and provides an overview of the four papers that constitute this section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case‐crossover analysis is used as a simple but powerful tool for estimating the effect of short‐term environmental factors such as extreme temperatures or poor air quality on mortality. The environment on the day of each death is compared to the one or more "control days" in previous weeks, and higher levels of exposure on death days than control days provide evidence of an effect. Current state‐of‐the‐art methodology and software (integrated nested Laplace approximation [INLA]) cannot be used to fit the most flexible case‐crossover models to large datasets, because the likelihood for case‐crossover models cannot be expressed in a manner compatible with this methodology. In this paper, we develop a flexible and scalable modeling framework for case‐crossover models with linear and semiparametric effects which retains the flexibility and computational advantages of INLA. We apply our method to quantify nonlinear associations between mortality and extreme temperatures in India. An R package implementing our methods is publicly available. [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]

Intermittency in wind offers the major challenge in accomplishing the wind energy as a dependable sustainable energy resource in power grid. Fluctuations in wind speed occur seasonally over a year and if this seasonality is considered, the prediction of the speed of wind can be made more accurate. In this paper, an attempt is made to apply a signal decomposition technique called Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD), which decomposes series of wind speed data into several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) to make the data more regular thereby enhancing the accuracy of the wind speed forecast model. Then, artificial intelligence technique, Adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is applied for the wind speed prediction by combining the obtained modes from VMD. Here, wind data of two sites in India, Jogimatti and Lamba are taken for the study. Each site data is grouped into high and low wind speed months and later, this series is decomposed into regular modes using VMD. Later, ANFIS is applied for training and predicting the wind speed for different time horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epidemiological and clinical features of demyelinating disorders in the Indian context have been sparsely reported. This paper aims to provide a review of literature from the past decade on the same. PubMed, Google scholar, and PubMed search databases were searched using subject headings and key words for data from the past 10 years (1999‐2019). Data from studies that collected Incidence and prevalence of demyelinating disorders were prioritized. In addition, clinical and demographic features of demyelinating disorders were obtained from hospital‐based studies published from different regions within India. The sole epidemiological study from India showed a prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) among Indians to be 8.3/100 000 and that of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) to be 2.7/100 000. Clinical features of MS obtained from hospital‐based studies showed female predominance, an onset of disease predominantly in the second decade of life and pyramidal dysfunction as a common initial attack. Aquaporin 4‐IgG‐associated NMOSD were predominantly in woman with myelitis as the most common initial attack. In contrast, MOG‐IgG‐associated disorders showed no gender bias and presented often with optic neuritis. There is growing awareness of demyelinating disorders in India, and the availability of imaging and serological tests has allowed for accurate and early diagnosis. In the absence of large epidemiological studies at the national level, there is likely to be a significant underestimation of prevalence and incidence of these diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing interest in the lives of individuals and communities during the COVID‐19 pandemic, there is consensus among scholars, academicians, and policy makers that the pandemic has had unequal impacts on different sections of the society. The dominant idea that “we are in this together” needs to be critically unpacked to understand the differential impact of the same pandemic on people with varied vulnerabilities. The concept of “intersectional vulnerability” has been key to understanding the unequal distribution of the pandemic risk. Using a gendered intersectional lens, this paper aims to understand the lived experiences of migrant women workers during the pandemic and their narratives of gendered inequality. Through a narrative study in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), India, from May to October 2020, this study brings out stories of precarity faced by five migrant women while battling the social, psychological, and economic effects of the pandemic. Loss of livelihood, home, savings, and prospects of a better future shape the narratives of these women. The pandemic exacerbated the already precarious positions of these women by creating a situation where—(a) patriarchal structures were further reinforced, and (b) losing gender solidarity and companionship through lockdown and social distancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has identified a number of risk factors ranging from inadequate household sanitation to maternal characteristics as important determinants of child malnutrition and health in India. What is less known is the extent to which these individual‐level risk factors are geographically distributed. Assessing the geographic distribution, especially at multiple levels, matters as it can inform where, and at what level, interventions should be targeted. The three levels of significance in the Indian context are villages, districts, and states. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to (a) examine what proportion of the variation in 21 risk factors is attributable to villages, districts, and states in India and (b) elucidate the specific states where these risk factors are clustered within India. Using the fourth National Family Health Survey dataset, from 2015 to 2016, we found that the proportion of variation attributable to villages ranged from 14% to 63%, 10% to 29% for districts and 17% to 62% for states. Furthermore, we found that Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh were in the highest risk quintile for more than 10 of the risk factors included in our study. This is an indication of geographic clustering of risk factors. The risk factors that are clustered in states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh underscore the need for policies and interventions that address a broader set of child malnutrition determinants beyond those that are nutrition specific. [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]