Indian Citizens Research Articles

Role of Technology in Driving Financial Inclusion in Indian Banking Sector

Digitalization is a new buzz world today. Over the past few years, India has been witnessing an extraordinary level of digitization and digital disruption, which has completely transformed the way in which public services are delivered. Technology has become a prominent theme which is driving inclusion across the financial services, education and healthcare ecosystem for all the citizens of India. As a result of the powerful JAM trinity of Jan Dhan Bank Accounts, the biometric Aadhar Card and hundreds of millions of mobile phones, financial inclusion has become a reality for the citizens of India. This has been speeding up by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) which has witnessed incredible adoption. UPI recorded over 22.33 billion transactions worth over ₹ 41.03 trillion at the end of FY 2020-21. The platform approach taken by the government in conceptualizing UPI has resulted in supreme payments products being developed on top of it, as a result of which payments can be made with the click of a mobile phone not just at retail outlets but also peer to peer, completely redefining the way in which money is transferred between individuals. Before UPI, the banking system is severely depending on different card system, the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system and transactions through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system to have the inclusive financial growth. The present research article discusses about the technology revolution in different payment infrastructure, tools and techniques adopted by the Indian banking sector and recognised the challenges faced by Indian banking system to have a digital financial inclusion in the country.

Analysis of teacher education curriculum from the standpoint of fundamental duties

"There were no rights without duties," Mahatma Gandhi said. So, responsibility comes first, followed by rights. However, we are more concerned with our Fundamental Rights than with our Fundamental Duties. There would be no need to seek information regarding our Fundamental Rights if we were all aware of our Fundamental Duties. Article 51-A of our Constitution establishes eleven Fundamental Duties for every Indian citizens. But, regrettably, the majority of us are unaware of those eleven Fundamental Duties. So, our initial job as teacher educators is to be aware of those eleven Fundamental Duties, since we all know that schools are the basic unit of society, and teacher training is now required to enter the teaching-learning process. So, if we make instructors aware of those eleven Fundamental Duties, then teachers will make students aware of those eleven Fundamental Duties, and students will make their families aware of those Fundamental Duties, and so on. It's similar to a chain of events. This article aims to determine the real understanding of eleven Fundamental Obligations among potential teacher educators, then solicit important suggestions from them for spreading awareness of those obligations, and finally, provide recommendations to our government for spreading awareness of those obligations.

Suicide & Its Prevention

Suicide is the intentional infliction of death on oneself. It is the leading cause of death on the planet. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15 to 19-year-olds. 79 percent of global suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries. Ingestion of pesticides, hanging, and the use of firearms are among the most common methods of suicide in the world. India's suicide rate increased to 230,314 in 2016. Suicide was the leading cause of mortality in both the 15–29 and 15–39 year age groups. Over 800,000 people die by suicide every year around the world, with 135,000 (17%) of them being Indian citizens, who make up 17.5 percent of the global population. Every year, significantly more people try to commit suicide than actually do so. A past suicide attempt is the single most important risk factor for suicide in the general population. In 2012, Tamil Nadu had the highest suicide rate (12.5%), followed by Maharashtra (11.9%) and West Bengal (10.1%). (11.0 percent). In 2012, Tamil Nadu and Kerala had the highest suicide rates per 100,000 people among states with large populations. Male suicides outnumber female suicides roughly 2:1 in India. Suicides are estimated to number in the millions in India. For example, a study published in The Lancet predicted 187,000 suicides in India in 2010, despite the Indian government's official statistics claiming 134,600 suicides in the same year. According to WHO data, India's age-standardized suicide rate for women is 16.4 per 100,000 (6th highest in the world) and for males is 25.8 per 100,000 (22nd).

More than Tea - Environmental Decay, Administrative Isolation and the Struggle for Identity in Darjeeling

The victim of both geographical, historical and administrative isolation, Darjeeling owed its growth to tea cultivation in the hills by migrants from neighbouring Nepal collectively called Gorkhas. Their contributions notwithstanding, they felt discriminated by West Bengal’s residents to whose state they were administratively attached. Poverty and poor working conditions, with no voice in the tea estates, and poorly maintained infrastructure that brought frequent landslides have fuelled demands for “Gorkhaland”, a homeland separate from West Bengal, where the distinctiveness of their identity and their role as Indian citizens would be fully recognised. It did not help that the Darjeeling district had been administratively detached from the political mainstream. Periodic agitations against the state government have weakened local institutions, disrupted the local economy impacting adversely tea production and tourism on which the local economy and the Gorkhas depend. The West Bengal government had partly recognised Gorkha demands by establishing the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) each vested with limited autonomy. But disagreements on autonomy have left the Gorkhaland issue unresolved. In the meantime, Darjeeling continues to experience gradual decay, absent adequate support from the West Bengal government and from Darjeeling’s local government, including the GTA itself.

Supporters of India's BJP: Distinctly Populist and Nativist

AbstractWhile India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become recognized as a populist radical right (PRR) party under the leadership of Narendra Modi, we do not know whether this PRR supply is matched yet by PRR attitudes among its supporters. Using an original survey, we therefore investigate: Do BJP supporters display PRR attitudes? We find that those who feel close to the BJP have stronger populist and nativist attitudes than other Indian citizens. However, authoritarianism is not a distinguishing feature of BJP supporters. We argue that the similarities between the drivers of support for European PRR parties and for the BJP reinforce the idea that radical right populism is a coherent global phenomenon both in terms of supply and demand. Finally, we discuss how our study shows that party support in India is more ideologically rooted than has previously been thought.

The Battle of Belonging: A Study of Contemporary Shillong Poets

The British colonialisation, the partition of India during independence, growing urbanization and increased human mobility led to the growth of migrant settlers belonging to a number of cultural, racial, ethnic and religious groups in the state of Meghalaya, particularly Shillong which is the state’s capital. These factors contributed to the transformation of the city into a multi-cultural centre. However, contradicting this development was the increased desire of the indigenous tribals of the state to exclude and otherise the non-tribal settlers by way of promoting the ‘sons of the soil’ policy. Though in the recent decades, statistics depicts (2011 census) more out-migration with a decreased share of the non-tribal to the state’s population, yet a perceived notion of increased in-migration was fed by the indigenous tribal belonging both to pressure groups and political parties leading to issues of insider-outsider the concept of belonging and un-belonging. Sigmund Freud and Abraham Maslow were the early psychologists who recognized that humans strive to belong. However, it was Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary’s seminal work “The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation” that contributed to the theoretical understandingof belonging. Belongingness in today’s multicultural society has become all the more relevant wherein the questions of belonging and un-belonging and the complex politics of belonging are issues that confront us. This in turn has led to ‘belonging’ emerging as a subject of interest and interrogation across multiple disciplines. The un-belonging felt by the people of the Northeast which results from their being ‘othered’ by their fellow Indian citizens of mainland India has been well documented but there is also a need to study how the same is reversed and how it is enacted and experienced in the context of the Northeast. This paper intends to analyse the select works of contemporary Shillong poets to depict how this otherisation and battle for belonging is enacted and experienced by the non-tribal settlers living in Shillong. In doing so, an attempt will be made to trace the complex working of the politics of belonging and how it manifests itself in present day Shillong.

RTI: A Tool of Good Governance

Transparency and accountability in administration are the basic elements for successful operation of democracy in the country. Like pure oxygen, information is the major element that citizens need to live in the social structure of the society and maintain its democratic balance. The enactment of the Right to Information Act in 2005 is a historic event in the annals of democracy in India. Right to Information (RTI) in India was implemented through Judicial pronouncements as a Fundamental Right under Article 19 (1) (a). This RTI Act became a pioneer tool for the Indian citizens to promote, protect and defend their Rights, apart from ensuring greater transparency it also acts as a deterrent against the arbitrary exercise of public powers. A major drastic change can be achieved towards transparency and accountability in governance by implementing the Act both in letter and spirit.

Sentiments Analyzer

Individual internet usage has expanded significantly in today's globe when compared to previous years. The evolution of AI has occurred as technology has advanced dramatically. Covid-19 is a global pandemic that has been underway since 2019, and the WHO has advised governments to take the appropriate steps to contain the problem. To safeguard citizens from this hazardous illness, the Indian government has planned a state-by-state lockdown beginning March 24, 2020. People were not allowed to work outside their homes during the curfew. All modes of transportation were restricted, with the exception of critical commodities transit and fire, police, and emergency services. Lockdowns were also imposed on educational institutions, industry, and hospitality services. On social media sites like Twitter and Koo, millions of people around the world began to express their views on the imposition of lockdown during the outbreak. Sentiment analysis, a subset of machine learning, has emerged as one of the most important areas of natural language processing (NLP). The skills of sentiment analysis can be used to examine people's reactions to an event. This required data extraction in order to understand people's emotions and play a key role in making changes to keep the problem under control. The purpose of this study is to find out what Indian citizens think about the nationwide lockdown imposed by the Indian government in order to reduce the spread of Coronavirus. In this study, NLP and machine learning classifiers were used to analyse the sentiment of tweets. Information was obtained from Twitter, annotated with TextBlob, and preprocessed with the Python's natural language tool package. RNN is used to classify sentiment in this study. The majority of Indian inhabitants accept the Indian government's decision to enforce a lockdown during the corona outburst, according to the results of this survey.

Catch Me if You Can

Catch Me if You Can

A Case Study of National Power Limited

National Power Limited (NPL) was a public sector undertaking of the Government of India under the Ministry of Power, having a total generating capacity of 4,860 megawatts of coal-based thermal power. NPL had seven power plants in operation across three states in the northern part of the country, with 8,212 employees. The case describes an appointment of a non-executive post at a power-generating plant of NPL, which is referred to as the Chandanpur unit. This appointment was made to honour an unprincipled demand by the Minister of Forestry and Environment of the concerned state government. The matter got exposed through a complaint received by the Vigilance Department of NPL. The manager of the coal handling department of the Chandanpur unit had lodged the complaint, mentioning the possibility of anomalies in the appointment. On verification, it was found out that the executive director of the Chandanpur unit had appointed a person in the highest supervisory post of that unit by flouting all rules and guidelines of recruitment in the organization. Anomalies included not taking approval for upgradation of the offer made initially, interviewing directly without holding any written test and changing the minimum eligibility criterion for the post. All this was a major breach of Article 14 of the Constitution of India, which confers the right to equality to a citizen of India as a fundamental right. Based upon findings of the investigation report, the culpability established in the irregularity and gross violation of the established rules of NPL, major disciplinary proceedings were initiated against all the involved officials and the appointee. Since it was a criminal case, it was also referred to the Federal Investigating Agency for further investigation and prosecution of the offenders. All NPL executives involved, and the appointee was implicated, though no culpability could be established against the Minister or his confidential assistant.

FINDING'S AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE GROWTH OF LIBRARY SCIENCE AND COMMUNITY INFORMATION CENTRES IN THE STATE (WITH SPECIAL REFRENCE TO THE KARNATAKA STATE)

Library and the information science can be said as the right of the Indian citizens to know by getting the information through the information science or library science. Although Government of India and Government of Karnataka have made efforts in developing e-governance projects with a noble mission to provide right information to the right user pertaining to social, economical, political, cultural and educational aspects using Information and communication Technology in the form of kiosks or community Information Center’s website. In spite of all these efforts, on the country, the present result of the study shows lack of automated Community Information Centers to support the rural society in meeting their timely information needs pertaining to agriculture, education, health and family welfare and women and child welfare. The Government agencies have family welfare and women and child welfare .The Government agencies have been providing huge amount of resources but for the implementation of the pragrammes have not been up to the mark. And the lack of information science infrastructure in rural and remote parts of Karnataka has been hurdle for the poor regions of the state.

RELEVANCE OF RIGHT TO VOTE FOR PERSONS WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT IN NAGPUR CITY: A CRITICAL STUDY

Freedom of expression is a core human right. All Indian citizens have a fundamental duty as well as right to vote. As all human rights are interdependent in nature, it is crucial for every individual to enjoy fundamental rights. Voting to elect political representative is the bedrock of modern democracy. Despite its immense importance, there are many marginalized sections in society which are unable to exercise their voting rights. Persons with Disabilities are one such group. The paper attempts to understand the reason for low voting turnout of this group and the extent to which the right to vote holds relevance for them. As this study is not totally based on secondary sources, survey method was also used for data collection. 20 persons with disabilities (10 persons with locomotive impairment, 5 persons with visual impairment as well as 5 persons with hearing impairment) were interviewed to know how relevant their voting right is to them and the reasons for the same.

Psychological effects of COVID-19 pandemic on Indian population: a review

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed the lives of millions of people and led to a major health crisis across the globe. According to various surveys and observations, people who were suffering from pre-existing mental issues, neurological defects, psychological disorders, were the more prone to COVID-19 infection. Based on this scenario, people from upper classes to lower classes, from infants to senior citizens, big business persons to small entrepreneurs, government agents to private-sector employees; all kinds of people faced various challenges, which weakened their strength of living. These situations snatched the power of normal living life and negativity suppressed globally. Break down of the education system, devastating socio-economic conditions, helpless healthcare system for uncertainty etc. were reasons for extreme level imbalanced psychological issues. Inside the crematorium, the fume of the burning fire of dead loved ones made people distressed in a daily manner. Some people gave up and wanted to end their lives, while most did suicidal attempts. Some people found themselves as jobless. Suddenly, People discovered themselves, fighting with hunger pain. It was the toughest war; struggling for existence, taking up arms against the unseen. The present study explored the psychological impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. The target of this study is to assess the effects of lockdown on the Indian citizen with an objective to appraise the manifestation of anxiety, mental trauma and depressive issues.

Analyzing Barriers in Expanding Multilingual Indian Science Communication

English’s status as the “lingua franca” of science has allowed for the expansion of science communication around the world. However, the remnants of the English educational system from British colonization have also furthered sociocultural disparities on the ground level in countries such as India, which is home to over a dozen national languages that are lost in the process of translating scientific concepts. Analyzing barriers in translating English-based science communication methods into vernacular Indian languages includes assessing linguistic feasibility, breaking down stigma apprehension surrounding topics such as HIV transmission and mental health, combatting the lack of institutional support, balancing time constraints, and understanding cultural context. In doing so, science professionals can embrace linguistic diversity while empowering the general public and promoting wider science accessibility during crucial times such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Multilingual science approaches will not only be able to strengthen Indian citizens’ connection with science but also set the tone for broader global science communication efforts.

Sentiment Analysis on Wearing Mask During COVID-19 Pandemic in India: A Case Study on Twitter

The ongoing pandemic, which was initiated in Wuhan, China, is the rapid spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). It has caused public health crises regionally and internationally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus can spread from an infected person's mouth or nose. Therefore, the WHO has given various guidelines to be followed by people as precautions, among them, wearing a face mask. So, in the proposed paper, sentiment analysis will be performed to study public views on wearing masks, even after getting vaccinated. The purpose of this study is to analyze tweets by Indian citizens on problems due to wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data analysis was conducted by several classification algorithms based on Artificial Immune System algorithms (AIS), which are a new deep-learning model for text analysis and performance, and results are also compared with other models such as Naïve Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machines (SVM), etc.

Review: Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa, by T.J. Tallie

Review: <i>Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa</i>, by T.J. Tallie

A Review Paper on Public Ration Distribution System using Deep Learning

Abstract: The main purpose of public distribution system is to ensure that the citizens of India will get an ample amount of food material based on their financial conditions. Still the goal is not achieved due to problems like distribution of false ration, corruption, illegal smuggling of goods. Thus, only government authorities in the head office have the authority to access information regarding existing stock and the incoming stock. Manual work should need to replace by a fully automated electronic methodologies with the help of Arduino controllers which is going to measure the goods accurately, update the information regarding ration distribution, transactions and ration card holder information in a digital format on the centralized database. Keywords: Public Distribution System, Corruption, Centralized Database, Automation, Digital Format

Provisioning of Information Products and Services for Visually Impaired users: A Study

Visually impaired people in India are estimated at 62 million; of these, 54 million persons have low vision, and 8 million have completely no vision. Government of India has been giving a lot emphasis on the improvement of the education, discusses the need of Digital Library for blind users, policies so that the persons with disability (Divyangjans) can live their life in a privileged manner as any other citizen of India. In this study, an effort was made to analyse efforts made by University of Delhi in providing information services to the visually impaired users as well as to know about the constraints faced by visually impaired users in acquiring knowledge in academic libraries, The study aims to provide an insight to the academic libraries to improve information services to the visually impaired users and discusses the need of Digital Library for them. It will be helpful for promoting web based and digital services for special users.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Impulsive Buying Behaviour for Domestic Brands

Consumers' lifestyles and shopping patterns are disrupted by pandemics like COVID-19, which has a negative influence on the global economy. Consumer purchases of a country's own brand and products created in that country contribute significantly to that country's GDP and aid in the recovery of that country's economy. During the first phase of the corona virus lockdown citizens in India faced unique scenarios, resulting in an unexpected shift in consumer preferences. The goal of this research is to identify what factors influence a consumer's buying behaviour while making a brand purchase decision, and to apply linear regression model to figure out what those factors are. Consumers have started preferring the value of cleanliness in products, environmentally friendly products, regional (local) products, and satisfaction beyond shopping during the pandemic. According to the findings of this study, these aspects determine their desire to buy Indian brands and items made-in-India. Furthermore, following the lockdown and the COVID era, customers believe that purchasing Indian-made products and encouraging others to do so will positively benefit and revitalise the Indian economy. The findings of this study can help marketing managers to develop proper promotion techniques to encourage ethnocentric tendencies, and cues can be offered to elicit a sense of economic nationalism in customers when they buy products or services. Keywords: global economy, ethnocentric tendencies, impulsive buying behaviour, purchase decision

Adverse events and breakthrough infections associated with COVID-19 vaccination in the Indian population.

Vaccines against COVID‐19 provide immunity to deter severe morbidities associated with the infection. However, it does not prevent infection altogether in all exposed individuals. Furthermore, emerging variants of SARS‐CoV‐2 impose a threat concerning the competency of the vaccines in combating the infection. This study aims to determine the variability in adverse events and the extent of breakthrough infections in the Indian population. A retrospective study was conducted using a pre‐validated questionnaire encompassing social, demographic, general health, the status of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection, vaccination, associated adverse events, and breakthrough infections in the Indian population. Informed consent and ethical approval were obtained as per Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines. Participants, who provided the complete information, were Indian citizens, above 18 years, and if vaccinated, administered with either Covishield or Covaxin, were considered for the study. Data have been compiled in Microsoft Excel and analyzed for statistical differences using STATA 11. The responses from 2051 individuals fulfilling the inclusion criteria were analyzed. Among 2051, 1119 respondents were vaccinated and 932 respondents were non‐vaccinated. Among 1119 vaccinated respondents, 7 were excluded because of missing data. Therefore, out of 1112 vaccinated, 413 experienced adverse events with a major fraction of younger individuals, age 18–40 years, getting affected (74.82%; 309/413). Furthermore, considerably more females than males encountered adverse consequences to vaccination (p < 0.05). Among vaccinated participants, breakthrough infections were observed in 7.91% (88/1112; 57.96% males and 42.04% females) with the older age group, 61 years and above (odds ratio, 3.25 [1.32–8.03]; p = 0.011), and males were found to be at higher risk. Further research is needed to find the age and sex‐related factors in determining vaccine effectiveness and adverse events.