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The study attempts to examine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic growth and public debt of the Indian economy. The authors also attempt to make quarterly projections of economic growth and external debt (ED) for the next five years. The objective is to understand how much time the economy takes to recover and at what pace. Consequently, this study elucidates the composition of debt after the crisis in the next five years.

To predict India's gross domestic product (GDP) and ED for the next five years, the authors used an auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. This model was built under a Box–Jenkins methodology (Box and Jenkins, 1976) and was subjected to an augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) test to check the stationarity of the data. The methodology includes three main steps to estimate and forecast the model: identification, estimation, and diagnostic and forecasting.

The study finds that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has significant implications for economic growth and public debt. The economy faced contraction in the first quarter of the year 2020 due to the suspension of economic activities and still struggling with the negative values of GDP. The forecasting results reveal that ED will continue to grow to meet the increasing health expenditure needs, and GDP will also bounce back slowly after the end of the year 2021. It has been noticed that the recurrent crisis derails the developing economies from the path of sustainable development to a prolonged economic slump with mounting public debt.

The study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic growth and public debt with particular reference to India. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time the quarterly projections for GDP and ED have been made after the COVID-19 crisis.

This study aims to explore the determinants of public debt in selected South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries for 19 years, from 2001 to 2019.

Using ordinary fixed and random effect models, the authors examine the role of internal and external factors in determining the composition of public debt. Furthermore, for robustness, they compare the results with two-stage least square (2SLS) regression estimates after considering the problem of endogeneity, overidentification, under-identification and weak instruments.

The findings show that among the selected macroeconomic variables, inflation, exchange rate and broad money have significant negative effects on the debt-GDP ratio. In contrast, military spending, corruption and interest rates appear to positively influence the same as per 2SLS results. From the policymaking perspective, SAARC countries should focus more on reducing military spending and make a concerted effort to augment investments in productive projects. Further, with strong fiscal consolidation and institutional quality, it is important to mitigate the frequent occurrence of corruption conundrums in emerging economies for the development of a transparent economic system.

The study is distinct from previous studies in two ways. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no studies focusing on SAARC countries in the context of public debt. Second, the study expands the existing literature on public debt by taking into account both external and internal debts to decipher the within-country and cross-country determinants of debt accumulation. More specifically, this model considers accountability and transparency in the public sector, cross-border security challenges and benefits of globalization by including explanatory variables such as corruption, military expenditure spending and capital inflows.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for generic competencies based on lifecycle orientation of projects to support infrastructure managers (IMs) in India.

This study has reviewed literature on competency theories and their advancement of knowledge in management, construction and engineering projects. This study has applied exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to structure generic competencies founded on infrastructure practices in India. Further this study has applied confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test for confirmation on emerged dimensionality of the competence construct for IMs in India.

Using data collected from 175 usable questionnaires of managers serving in infrastructure firms in India for EFA followed by CFA, six generic competencies have been established in the domains of strategic, analytical, personal, managerial, professional and leadership dimensions significantly impacting competent performance.

This study has applied plausibility sampling and it presents only generic competencies for executives working in the infrastructure sector alone.

Due to the growth in number of executives to be employed in infrastructure firms in India, academic institutions in this subcontinent have gained momentum in offering programmes covering the field of infrastructure management. These institutions are believed to be covering domains of strategic, analytical, personal, managerial, professional and leadership dimensions for assuring competent performance of IMs in India.

Attention to these generic competencies can help IMs to contribute towards better performance, academic institutions to design curriculum, recruiters to acquire talent and executives to advance professionally.

Extant academic studies relating to generic competencies are available mostly in project and construction domains. There is a paucity of such academic studies in the domain of infrastructure.

Familiarize with the retail operations of handicrafts, facility location problem, apply multi-criteria decision through the goal programming approach and solving the same with MS Excel.

The case portrays a dilemma in the context of retail operations of a small-scale handicraft company known as Odisha Craft. Located in Odisha, Susanta Mohanty, the owner, was finding it a challenge to decide on the most promising location for his new retail outlet in the neighbouring city of Kolkata. He had five choices for the locations. Odisha craft was established by his father-in-law in 2009 with an objective to preserve and promote the rich culture of the handicrafts designed by the local artisans and ensure sustainable rural livelihood. The company had been facing numerous challenges and the pandemic has given a very formidable blow to the monthly revenues. The case brings out the multi-faceted dilemma of deciding on the facility location in 2020, involving a set of conflicting criteria. The case unfolds a systematic solution approach resolving the dilemma using MS Excel.

Courses such as operations research, operations management, service operations and retail operations for MBA students and trainings for junior-middle level executives.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 09: Operations and Logistics

After completion of this case study, the students will be able to comprehend the importance of communication in managing change, examine the role of processes and systems in implementing change management initiatives at a large scale, assess the effectiveness of various strategies in mitigating resistance to change and recognise optimal strategies for communication processes and messages with respect to different audience and contexts.

This case study discusses decisions and strategies that led to Indore (a city in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India) becoming India’s cleanest city for the sixth time in a row. The case explores if the various strategies used by the commissioner of Indore Municipal Corporation would continue to succeed in mitigating resistance to change from the citizens of Indore or if the change management strategies needed to be revised. Amidst intensely rising competition from other cities, especially Surat (a city in the state of Gujarat, India), the case delves into the commissioner’s efforts to defend Indore’s claim of being India’s cleanest city for the sixth consecutive time.

This case study is suitable for use in executive modules and management development programs. It can be used for the following courses: ■ In change management course, this case study can cover critical aspects of strategies to mitigate resistance to change and bring about lasting behavioural changes in followers.■ In communication courses, this case study can cover key aspects of communicating the change vision of a leader to a large audience.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management science

There has been a substantial increase in the implementation of programmes that aim to enhance the livelihoods of rural people by organizing them into groups, emphasizing women towards achieving women empowerment, which is one of the key goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study aims to assess the impact of participation in self-help groups (SHGs) under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) on the political empowerment of rural tribal women in India.

This study is based on primary data collected using a multistage random sampling method. Field research is conducted in the state of Jharkhand, primarily focusing on women belonging to the scheduled tribe category. The propensity score matching technique derives the results using the psmatch2 command in STATA.

The results show a significant positive change in women's access to voting rights, awareness of various government schemes and entitlements, political awareness and participation, campaigning during elections and leadership positions after participation in SHGs under NRLM.

The existing literature indicates that research on the empowerment of tribal women through participation in SHGs is scant. This study makes a novel contribution by examining the effectiveness of participation in SHGs under NRLM on the political empowerment of tribal women in rural India. This study will provide significant insights to the government, policymakers, practitioners and researchers working on SHGs and tribal women’s empowerment.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-06-2023-0489

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of partial texture location and dimple depth on load carrying capacity (LCC), friction coefficient and circumferential flow of journal bearing.

Based on the Navier-Stokes equation, the methodology used computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A phase change boundary condition was applied on fluid domain, and the negative pressure at divergent region of oil film was considered.

It has been found that texture located at lubricant inlet area can improve the performance of the bearing, and the effect of shallow dimples is superior to the deep ones. However, the bearing performance will be reduced due to the texture located at the maximum pressure area. When texture is located at the lubricant outlet area, there will be two different situations: the part of the texture located within the oil film divergent area can improve the LCC, while the part that is beyond the divergent region will make the LCC decrease.

The lower-half oil film model was established only in this study to analyze the hydrodynamic lubrication performance of partial textured journal bearing, and the lower-half oil film was divided into three parts. A new cavitation algorithm was introduced to deal with the negative pressure. The formula for calculating the friction of liquid film is refined, including the consideration of vapor phase. The simulation results show that the location of partial texture have a great influence on the bearing performance.

The nano-router would be a mastery device for providing high-speed data delivery. Here nano-router with a space-efficient crossbar scheduler is used for making absolutely less consumption in power.

In the emerging modern technology, every one of us is expecting a delivery of data at a high speed. To achieve high-speed delivery the authors are using the router. The router used here is at nanoscale reading which provides a compact size.

This can be implemented using the modern tools called Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) which is operated without the use of a transistor. As conventional complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) designs have some limitations such as low density, high power consumption and requirement of a large area.

To overcome these limitations the QCA is used. It characterizes capability is used to substituting CMOS technology. The round-robin fashion is used in a high-speed space-efficient crossbar scheduler.

The simulation of the planned circuit with notional information established the practical identity of the scheme.

The proposed nano router can be stimulated in the QCA environment using the QCADesigner tool and the power of the router can be calculated with the QCADesigner–E tool.

The proposed nano router can be stimulated in the QCA environment using the QCADesigner tool and the power of the router can be calculated with the QCADesigner–E tool. In this work, the performance of the router can be done in both the QCA environment and CMOS technology.

The paper presents the facts on the policy challenges and opportunities in the way forward of trade and economic co-operation in South Asia amid the coronavirus disease 2019, which comes to be the least economically integrated region worldwide. Due to tense geopolitics in South Asia, trade is heavily biased toward extra-regional markets despite of existing regional trade agreements (TAs) in the region.

Having tested the stationarity of data with structural break, the paper uses intra-regional trade in addition to other domestic economic variables as exogenous regressors in autoregressive distributed lag multivariate framework, hence raising the quality of statistical inference.

This paper highlights that intra-regional trade significantly affects the economic welfare as measured by Gross Domestic Product per capita of the people from the region, hence raising the need for higher regional trade openness. If trade barriers are overcome, all the South Asian countries will gain through effective implementation of regional TAs.

The study relies on the multivariate technique with regional trade share as the main exogenous variable. In addition, the regulatory and economic conditions of all countries are different which also tends to affect the mutual degree of trade relations.

Over the economic reasons, the manmade barriers owing to political differences are the root cause for the low intra-regional trade. Amid the pandemic, South Asian courtiers have the high time to leverage the bilateral trade for mutual benefits. India being the largest economy can play a decisive role in pushing forward the regional trade bloc – South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) – for achieving its objective through multilateral engagements in a wider perspective.

The present study makes pioneer efforts to examine the dynamic linkages between regional trade and economic growth. The results provide new insight into the dynamics of benefits driven by trade interdependency.

This paper aims to focus on the most popular technique nowadays, the use of microwave irradiation in organic synthesis; in a few years, most chemists will use microwave energy to heat chemical reactions on a laboratory scale. Also, many scientists use microwave technology in the industry. They have turned to microwave synthesis as a frontline methodology for their projects. Microwave and microwave-assisted organic synthesis (MAOS) has emerged as a new “lead” in organic synthesis.

Using microwave radiation for synthesis and design of fluorescent dyes is of great interest, as it decreases the time required for synthesis and the synthesized dyes can be applied to industrial scale.

The technique offers many advantages, as it is simple, clean, fast, efficient and economical for the synthesis of a large number of organic compounds. These advantages encourage many chemists to switch from the traditional heating method to microwave-assisted chemistry.

This review highlights applications of microwave chemistry in organic synthesis for fluorescent dyes. Fluorescents are a fairly new and very heavily used class of organics. These materials have many applications, as a penetrant liquid for crack detection, synthetic resins, plastics, printing inks, non-destructive testing and sports ball dyeing.

The aim value of this review is to define the scope and limitation of microwave synthesis procedures for the synthesis of novel fluorescent dyes via a simple and economic way.