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Digital humanities is a result of the convergence of digital technology with social sciences and humanities. It is one of the key research areas around the world by the library and information science profession, and in cognate areas such as art and archeology. Focus groups, digital humanities centres are created for intensive researches which are located mainly in libraries as their core programmes. The library techniques and methods such as knowledge organisation, knowledge management, search and retrieval design, education, and emerging areas such as metadata, semantic mapping, ontology, thesaurus construction, digital curation, discovery services, find application in digital humanities. A new area of study, historical informatics complements the digital humanities. India has vast potential application of digital humanities with its diverse culture, customs and languages and so on. India is reckoned as one of the advanced countries in the IT sector, hence recognising the socio-cultural legacy and diverse historical background, it is viewed that digital humanities has many opportunities and applications for LIS professionals in India to contribute substantially. This paper brings together the concepts, tools, and applications of digital humanities and proposes a course of study in LIS curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing population age structure has a significant influence on the economy, society, and numerous other aspects of a country. This paper has innovatively applied the method of compositional data forecasting for the prediction of population age changes of the young (aged 0–14), the middle-aged (aged 15–64), and the elderly (aged older than 65) in China, India, and Vietnam by 2030 based on data from 1960 to 2016. To select the best-suited forecasting model, an array of data transformation approaches and forecasting models have been extensively employed, and a large number of comparisons have been made between the aforementioned methods. The best-suited model for each country is identified considering the root mean squared error and mean absolute percent error values from the compositional data. As noted in this study, first and foremost, it is predicted that by the year 2030, China will witness the disappearance of population dividend and get mired in an aging problem far more severe than that of India or Vietnam. Second, Vietnam’s trend of change in population age structure resembles that of China, but the country will sustain its good health as a whole. Finally, the working population of India demonstrates a strong rising trend, indicating that the age structure of the Indian population still remains relatively “young”. Meanwhile, the continuous rise in the proportion of elderly population and the gradual leveling off growth of the young population have nevertheless become serious problems in the world. The present paper attempts to offer crucial insights into the Asian population size, labor market and urbanization, and, moreover, provides suggestions for a sustainable global demographic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Resource allocation decisions for disease categories can be informed by proper estimates of the magnitude and distribution of total spending. In the backdrop of a high burden of Non-Communicable Diseases and Injuries (NCDI) in India, and a paucity of estimates on government spending on NCDI, this paper attempts to analyse public sector expenditure on NCDI spending in India. Methods: Various recent budget documents of the Centre and States/Union Territories have been used to extract expenditure on NCDI. The aggregates thus arrived at have been analysed to estimate aggregate and state level per capita spending. State level spending have been compared against disease burden using DALYs. Patterns of spending on NCDI across states were also analysed together with state level poverty to observe possible patterns. Findings: The total spending on NCDI by the government is low at less than 0.5% of GDP. NCDI spending is little more than one-fourth of total health spending of the country and most spending takes place at the state level (80%). The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s share in Central spending on NCDI is around 65%, and currently it spends 20% of its total health spending on NCDI. The gap between spending and DALYs is the most for the economically vulnerable states. Also, the states with high poverty levels also have low per capita expenditure on NCDI Interpretation: India does not depend on donor funding for health. It will have to step up domestic funding to address the increasing disease burden of NCDIs and to reduce the high out-of-pocket expenditure on NCDI. Policies on NCDI need to focus on UHC, service integration and personnel gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the problem of establishing a network among the stocks of a market at high frequency level and give an application to program trading. Our work uses high frequency data from the National Stock Exchange, India, for the year 2014. To begin, we analyse the spectrum of the correlation matrix to establish the presence of linear relations amongst the stock returns. A comparison of correlations with pairwise mutual information shows the further existence of non-linear relations which are not captured by correlation. We also see that the non-linear relations are more pronounced at the high frequency level in comparison to the daily returns used in earlier work. We provide two applications of this approach. First, we construct minimal spanning trees for the stock network based on mutual information and study their topology. The year 2014 saw the conduct of general elections in India and the data allows us to explore their impact on aspects of the network, such as the scale-free property and sectorial clusters. Second, having established the presence of non-linear relations, we would like to be able to exploit them. Previous authors have suggested that peripheral stocks in the network would make good proxies for the Markowitz portfolio but with a much smaller number of stocks. We show that peripheral stocks selected using mutual information perform significantly better than ones selected using correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The increasing dependence on street vending as a source of livelihood for people across urban spaces in countries like Cambodia and India continues to promote exciting areas of research in social sciences. Our study captures the narratives of street vendors (seen as the 'invisible' entrepreneurs), working in markets across Delhi (India) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and analyzes the inventory logistics of products sold by them, thereby, reflecting the complex nature of an inter-twined, existential relationship between what's classified as 'informal' and 'formal' in urban economies. The mutual interdependence seen in the governing dynamics of economic exchange (for example, in selling commodities and services across identified markets in Phnom Penh and Delhi), argues for a need to inclusively study urban ecosystems while addressing the needs of street vendors. This paper does so by incorporating ethnographic methods with a specific reference to street vending (as a commercial urban activity). Further, we emphasize on an epistemic need to cross-fertilize thought(s) and method(s) across social science disciplines to produce more of such urban narratives, exploring the inter-twined relationship between the 'informal' and 'formal' aspects of urban ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the causality between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is helpful for policymakers to formulate energy, environmental and economic policies. For the first time, based on nonlinear dynamics, this paper employs multispatial convergent cross mapping (CCM) to revisit the energy-carbon-economy causation for China, India and the G7 countries using both aggregate data and per capita data. The findings indicate that there are significant differences between developing countries and developed countries. A bidirectional nexus between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is found in China and India, but various causal relationships are identified in the G7 countries, including bidirectional, unidirectional and neutral nexus. The results confirm that the decoupling phenomenon is common in most G7 countries. By leveraging a variety of samples and a new approach, this study provides new evidence for policy authorities to formulate country-specific policies to obtain better environmental quality while achieving sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social inclusiveness of agricultural extension services in India. We estimate the probability and frequency of farmers’ access to extension services and resulting changes in crop income across different caste groups. The literature suggests that caste-based social segregation manifests in various spheres of life, and perpetuates economic inequality and oppression. An econometric analysis of nationally-representative data from rural India verifies this with respect to the agricultural sector. Farmers belonging to the socially-marginalized castes are found to have a lower chance of accessing the public extension services, primarily due to their inferior resource-endowment status. Contacting extension agents at least once increased the average annual crop income by about 12 thousand Indian rupees per household, which is equivalent to 36% of the annual crop income of those without access to extension services. There exists significant impact heterogeneity. Farmers from the socially-marginalized castes hardly benefited from accessing the extension services. Based on these observations, we have developed a number of policy recommendations that could improve the social inclusiveness of agricultural development strategies in rural India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the ongoing demographic and epidemiological transition, cancer is emerging as a major public health concern in India. This paper uses nationally representative household survey to examine the overall prevalence and economic burden of cancer in India. The age-standardized prevalence of cancer is estimated to be 97 per 100,000 persons with greater prevalence in urban areas. The evidence suggests that cancer prevalence is highest among the elderly and also among females in the reproductive age groups. Cancer displays a significant socioeconomic gradient even after adjusting for age-sex specifics and clustering in a multilevel regression framework. We find that out of pocket expenditure on cancer treatment is among the highest for any ailment. The average out of pocket spending on inpatient care in private facilities is about three-times that of public facilities. Furthermore, treatment for about 40 percent of cancer hospitalization cases is financed mainly through borrowings, sale of assets and contributions from friends and relatives. Also, over 60 percent of the households who seek care from the private sector incur out of pocket expenditure in excess of 20 percent of their annual per capita household expenditure. Given the catastrophic implications, this study calls for a disease-based approach towards financing such high-cost ailment. It is suggested that universal cancer care insurance should be envisaged and combined with existing accident and life insurance policies for the poorer sections in India. In concluding, we call for policies to improve cancer survivorship through effective prevention and early detection. In particular, greater public health investments in infrastructure, human resources and quality of care deserve priority attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we model the bus networks of six major Indian cities as graphs in L-space, and evaluate their various statistical properties. While airline and railway networks have been extensively studied, a comprehensive study on the structure and growth of bus networks is lacking. In India, where bus transport plays an important role in day-to-day commutation, it is of significant interest to analyze its topological structure and answer basic questions on its evolution, growth, robustness and resiliency. Although the common feature of small-world property is observed, our analysis reveals a wide spectrum of network topologies arising due to significant variation in the degree-distribution patterns in the networks. We also observe that these networks although, robust and resilient to random attacks are particularly degree-sensitive. Unlike real-world networks, such as Internet, WWW and airline, that are virtual, bus networks are physically constrained. Our findings therefore, throw light on the evolution of such geographically and constrained networks that will help us in designing more efficient bus networks in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out-of-pocket spending at out-patient departments (OPD) by households is relatively less analyzed compared to hospitalization expenses in India. This paper provides new evidence on the levels and drivers of expenditure on out-patient care, as well as choice of providers, using household survey data from 8 districts in 3 states of India. Results indicate that the economically vulnerable spend more on OPD as a proportion of per capita consumption expenditure, out-patient care remains overwhelmingly private and switches of providers—while not very prevalent—is mostly towards private providers. A key result is that choice of public providers tend to lower OPD spending significantly. It indicates that an improvement in the overall quality and accessibility of government facilities still remain an important tool that should be considered in the context of financial protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Common mental disorders (CMD) such as depression, suicidal risk and emotional/medically unexplained complaints affect a large number of people in India, but few receive appropriate care. Key reasons for this include few trained mental health professionals and stigma associated with mental health. A potential approach to address poor access to care is by training village healthcare workers in providing basic mental health care, and harnessing India’s vast mobile network to support such workers using mobile-based applications. We propose an intervention to implement such an approach that incorporates the use of mobile-based electronic decision support systems (EDSS) to provide mental health services for CMD, combined with a community-based anti-stigma campaign. This will be implemented and evaluated across 42 villages in Andhra Pradesh, a south Indian state. This paper discusses the development and testing of the EDSS, and the formative research that informed the anti-stigma campaign. Materials and Methods: The development of the EDSS used an iterative process that was validated against clinical diagnosis. A mixed methods approach tested the user acceptability of the EDSS. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews provided community-level perceptions about mental health. This study involved 3 villages and one primary health centre. Results: The EDSS application was found to be acceptable, but some modifications were needed. The community lacked adequate knowledge about CMD and its treatment and there was stigma associated with mental illness. Faith and traditional healers were considered to be important mental health service providers. Discussion: A number of barriers and facilitators were identified in implementing the intervention analysed in a framework using Andersen’s behavioural model of health services use. Conclusion: The findings assisted with refining the intervention prior to large-scale implementation and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the1830s the colonial government in India became the agency for the promotion of ‘Western education’, that is, education that sought to disseminate modern, Western, rational knowledge through modern institutions and pedagogic processes. This paper examines a historical episode in which certain key categories of modern Western thought were pressed into service to explain a consequence of the dissemination of Western knowledge in colonial India. The episode in question was that of the alleged ‘moral crisis’ of the educated Indian, who, many argued, had been plunged into confusion and moral disarray following his exposure to Western knowledge in the schools and universities established by his British ruler. In the discourse of moral crisis, the knowledge being disseminated through Western education was simultaneously put to use in explaining an unanticipated effect of this education. How adequate was Western knowledge to explaining its own effects? More generally – for this paper is drawn from a larger study of how modern Western knowledge ‘travelled’ when transplanted to colonial India – what is the status of the knowledge we produce when we ‘apply’ the categories of modern Western thought in order to understand or explain India? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Literature on international migration from India in the past has focused on the formation and development of 'Indian diasporas'; that is, Indians who have moved to various parts of the world and maintain socio-economic, cultural and political lives in India as well as other countries. However, little attention has been paid toward 'temporary migrants' who have migrated to different countries with a temporary visa and in the course of time extended their visas to become 'permanent residents'. Temporary migration from India has become a common trend over the last two decades, especially since the acceleration of globalisation and the developments in the fields of information and communication technologies. Although it is argued that this type of migration took place in the past - for instance, Indians migrated to British, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonies during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries as indentured labourers for a period of three to five years and later extended their stays - what is new about the current trend is the new state policies of different host countries and the socio-economic and cultural background of the immigrants. This paper is an exploratory study of this contemporary phenomena of movement from 'temporary migrant' to 'permanent resident', a phenomena which has not been given much attention by academicians and policy makers in India. The present paper outlines this trend with an illustration of Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of digital information resources on Internet has revolutionised the academic world. The Internet is paving way for a great leap in the field of higher education and research. This paper is an attempt to investigate the use of Internet resources by the academic community of the Sri Venkateswara University (SVU), Tirupati. For this purpose a survey was carried out using questionnaire tool. The results show that users from all branches of science are making use of Internet resources better than social sciences and humanities. Providing training to its users at the beginning of each semester will improve its use and reduce the problems faced by the library users. The paper highlighted the various problems and issues involved in handling digital library and has given suggestions to improve the library services to meet the demands of the users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is enough literature on the human development process, particularly on induced development, in different disciplines of social sciences. A thorough study of these and an amalgamation of the ideas contained in the subject matter would make a development practitioner as sure-footed as it is possible to get. There must be a fairly large number of development practitioners who make this effort, and yet the development landscape is littered with examples where the process has gone awry or the benefits accruing from the process has remained suboptimal. The present paper looks into one such small development initiative carried out in the Sundarbans, very close to the venue of the 39th Annual Conference of the Indian Anthropological Society. In fact, it is this proximity that has prompted the selection of this development example, apart from the fact that the initiative has thrown up the opportunity to closely, scrutinise the reasons for accrual of sub-optimal benefits despite having taken into account the wisdom available in the various disciplines of social sciences. Although the example is very local, it is quite typical of development practice, and the lessons learnt should hold true for almost all non-urban situations. This paper analyses the development initiative in question and attempts to share the lessons learnt. It is hoped that our collective understanding of human development is enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic crises, health related issues, socio-psychological adjustment, leisure and recreation, family environment and care, extra familial rehabilitation and condition in the old age home etc. are the major aspects of the elderly persons: of India which have been dealt by the researchers on gerontology in India. However, it is revealed that most of the gerontological studies in India are centered on urban, middle class, educated and service sector populations, and in most of the cases the elderly people have been considered as liabilities rather than assets. In this background, the present paper is an attempt to highlight the different roles, engagement as well as contributions made by the elderly population living in a rural area and leading an agrarian way of life. The paper also makes an attempt to derive some policy recommendations, which may be useful for better understanding of the condition as well as socio-economic and cultural contributions of the elderly people of rural India in agrarian settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropological discourses on the traditional Indian rural institution, the jajmani, usually suggest either a single system immutable model like that of Wiser or Dumont, or the multiple system models of Parry. Reheja, Lerche, and others. In this paper it is suggested that neither of these models satisfactorily explains the nature of inter-jati exchange relations in rural India. It is, therefore, imperative to simultaneously examine the basic ideology behind these relations, and the impacts of many socio-political and historical forces to devise a locally adaptive form of such relations without necessarily obliterating the basic ideology. Critically examining Lerche's views on coastal Orissa as an example, the paper explicates that as the jati dynamics in its locally adaptive form does not necessarily contradict the basic principles of jati organization, similarly the inter-jati exchange relations may take different forms for meeting the common goal or survival needs. It is only wrapped with ritual fervour to legitimize the occupational monopoly of different jatis and to ensure its sustainablity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is such a thing as Indian thought, it seems to play no role in the way social sciences and philosophy are practiced in India or elsewhere. The problem is not only that we no longer employ terms such as atman, avidya, dharma to reflect on our experience; the terms that we do indeed use—sovereignty, secularism, rights, civil society and political society, corruption—seem to insulate our experience from our reflection. This paper will outline Gandhi's framing of our predicament in Hind Swaraj. It will then discuss three very different examples taken from our peculiar life with concepts that will also serve to clarify and illustrate the framework I am outlining. It will then very briefly discuss how Gandhi saw the Gita as showing him a way out of the predicament. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The impact of Twenty-years-old conflict on Kashmiri society has proved deeper, wider and has engulfed the totality of social dynamics. In actuality, every sector and every section of the Kashmiri society suffer in totality at the individual as well as group level. Education was the major causality as a result of the conflict .The major cause leading to the decreasing working days were incidents of violence and crumbling of the entire system of governance. This paper aims to focus on the impact of the conflict situation on education of youth in Kashmir. The present study has been limited to youth enrolled in various degree colleges covering the faculties of general science, social science, Humanities, Business/commerce and computer science. The respondents were selected from the colleges of six districts of Kashmir province of Jammu and Kashmir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding violence is a major pre-occupation in social sciences and approaches to violence range from neoclassical perspectives, to regression models, to pure cultural analysis of difference. This paper attempts to understand violence by examining how class and identity positions are variously juxtaposed in different socio-spatial settings to produce contestations over the human condition. Through a comparative understanding of recent violence in two places-the riots of 2005 in Paris, France, and of 2002 in Ahmedabad, India-I indicate how class and identity overlap to produce fused realms of othering and violation. Through comparative analysis, I argue that in a globalizing world, class and identity will overlap in multifarious ways depending on the socio-spatial particularities of systemic exclusion. Therefore, studies of violence must move away from purely economistic and mathematical model building and instead move towards combining economic and cultural analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calls attention to matsyanyaya, or state of nature theories, in classical Indian thought, and their significance. The focus is on those discussions of matsyanyaya found in the law books, political treatises and the Mahabharata epic. The significance and relevance of matsyanyaya theories are shown through a comparison with early modern state of nature theories and an elaboration on the possible place of rights and dharma in matsyanyaya and the consequences of this for classical Indian political theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we follow a lead provided by Basu and Basu [‘The Greying of Populations: Concepts and Measurement,’ Demography India 16, pp. 79–89], in order to advance a class of ‘agedness’ indices which, because they have been motivated by analogous considerations in the poverty measurement literature, can find application in that area of enquiry as well. The properties of the proposed indices are discussed, and illustrations of empirical application are provided. The note is intended as a contribution to the larger enquiry into the measurement of development indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the issue of women's political representation in France and India. Its aim is threefold. First, it explains how women's representation was placed on the political agenda. Second, it examines the arguments used to justify and oppose demands for better representation. Finally, it considers what conclusions can be drawn from the two cases. By moving beyond conventional comparative categories in Western feminist literature and beyond the isolationist insistence within France on its own specificity, the paper identifies the particularisms and commonalities of each case, thus attempting to achieve what Shirin Rai calls a "rooted crossing of cultural, historical and political boundaries" (Rai, 2000:15). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an overview of the method and procedure followed by the National Social Science Documentation Centre, India, to assess the present state of affairs relating to publication policy, bibliographical control, distribution and use of government reports in India. The result of an opinion survey on the subject using Delphi technique has been included. The results show that there are gaps in government report collections in libraries. These reports have enormous research value. The underutilization of these reports can be ascribed to both service inadequacies and user motivation. There is an urgent need to compile a comprehensive catalogue of all government reports (published by the states as well as the center) which will eventually take the form of a user's guide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates whether past declines in mortality could have created a huge deficit of eligible men in the marriage market, and whether the ensuing competition for mates could be responsible for the coercive character the dowry system of marriage has assumed in India. New indices have been developed to measure the trends in bridegroom availability that aid in the inquiry into the demographic origins of marriage squeeze. It is contended that the marriage squeeze against women was particularly intense in India because mortality decline, in addition to age structural changes, drastically reduced the number of widowers in the population who once accounted for about one-fifth of the annual supply of bridegrooms. Our projections indicate that, as a result of recent declines in fertility, the marriage squeeze against females will ease substantially by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, and that marriages of men will begin to be delayed more than those of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology ought to be totalistic in its orientation as everything human is native to sociology Given this an understanding of the nature of sociological research and practice in specific societies provides a necessary Input in the pursuit of sociology Therefore India comprising one sixth of humanity and well known for its legendary socio-cultural complexity is a particularly appropriate case to be analysed in this Context Colonialism nationalism and the modern indian State successively and conjointly shaped Indian society Having emerged and being practised in a society moulded by contradictory forces Indian sociology faces several dilemmas The paper not only lists the major dilemmas but also identifies the crucial elements of the pluralist paradigm which is emerging to cope with these dilemmas The paradigm is a welcome addition on two counts it adequately mirrors the complex social reality of India and forms an invaluable input to the practice of sociology, worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]