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The purpose of this paper is to validate the theoretical finding that digital MNEs avoid physical presence norms of permanent establishment and royalty characterization rules for business and royalty taxation, respectively, to escape tax incidence in the market economy, using information, communication and technology features and transfer pricing (TP) manipulations.

Multiple case studies of MNEs from technology sector, based on judicial decisions in 141 cases, over taxability of profits earned from Indian economic activities. Additional in-depth case study of the Uber Group to study the tax avoidance structures under platform economy, by routing of Indian profits through The Netherlands, a tax haven.

The study finds a significant number of digital MNEs earning profits from India and avoiding tax by defying physical presence and royalty characterization. In majority of the cases, demand-side business activities are discharged through incorporating and remunerating affiliates at cost plus low markup, thus avoiding tax incidence, using TP manipulations under the arm’s length principle applied by governments for benchmarking the intragroup transactions of the MNEs.

The research findings validate the view that digital features promote tax avoidance in the market economy.

The originality of the study lies in the validation of profit shifting through digital features from the developing market economy and portending that digital MNEs defy physical presence to avoid business taxation through TP manipulations.

The present research identifies a total of nine factors influencing tax avoidance under the international taxation regime of the developing countries and establishes a hierarchical relationship through modeling of the identified factors using modified-total interpretive structural modeling (M-TISM).

Due to “scale without mass” properties of the digital economy, businesses reduce their physical presence in the countries of economic activities. Aided with digital features, multinational enterprises (MNEs) avoid, abolish, or adopt flexible tax burden in the developing nations through by-passing the permanent establishment condition for company taxes or the income characterization prerequisite for royalty taxation. The present research endeavors to identify the drivers of tax avoidance in the developing countries, especially exacerbated due to digital technologies (economy). In addition, the authors also examine the hierarchical relation between the extracted drivers of tax avoidance.

This research presents a considerable driving force of elements like historical foundation of tax-treaties, dominance of the developed countries, influence of trade bodies in policy matters and finally information and communications technologies (ICTs).

Identified elements drive the actors like professional enablers, tax havens, international organizations, and intangible assets in the form of intellectual properties (IPs) which act upon tax arbitrage situations both under the domestic and treaty regulations, finally culminating into profit shifting, tax manipulations or avoidance.

The purpose of this study is to use the framework of stakeholder analysis in a participatory democracy, used in forest management planning, for arriving at the best management option for selected sacred groves of Kachchh. This is achieved by accounting for economic, cultural and ecological values and the resulting outcomes in the complex institutional mechanism. Additionally, this study provides a framework for complex decision-making that characterizes the management of sacred groves involving multiple criteria and options accounting for multiple stakeholders that involve conflicting interests.

The analytical hierarchy process was used to calculate the global priorities of management options using the relative importance of stakeholders, weights of different decision criteria to arrive at the best management practice for selected groves of Kachchh. The global priorities of management options rank management practices based on stakeholders' values and their effects on the choice of management strategy as well as on the potential to attain a compromise between competing interests. For this purpose, survey responses of 141 individuals belonging to seven different stakeholder categories were analyzed. Along with focus group discussions, and personal interviews, a stratified random sampling technique was used to survey respondents.

Based on the global priority weights of the alternatives, it is determined that the restoration management option (guggal is restored by planting new guggal sapplings, cattle grazing is prohibited and high levels of ecosystem goods and services are provided) had the highest score, followed by the preservation management option (grazing is allowed on the periphery, juvenile guggal is preserved and moderate ecosystem goods and services are provided). Therefore, restoration of sacred groves is the best management practice of sacred groves in West Kachchh, offering a compromise between maximizing provision of ecosystem services and economic benefits in terms of allowing cattle grazing.

Though there are several studies on best management practices for community-owned forests, irrigation systems, and pasture lands, and the role of local institutions in sustaining these common-pool resources; such studies for sacred groves are absent, despite sacred groves being one of the longest surviving common-pool resources that has sustained it over several decades. This is the first study that uses the framework of stakeholder analysis to arrive at the best management practice for sacred groves. The uniqueness of the study lies in a comprehensive evaluation of ecological–economic–cultural interests of multiple stakeholders toward management of sacred groves.

Over the past few years, the electronic media, as represented by the internet version of print media and independent blogs of journalists, has become a major player in the coverage of incidents related to violence against women. While this has brought forward issues of violence and specifically rape prominently into the public sphere, the media portrayal of women has often been as victims or victims who are somehow responsible for the violence against them. Such portrayal has been repeatedly challenged by feminists. Using data from 572 national and international English media reports for a six-month period (from December 2012 to April 2013) the coverage of the protests about the 2012 case of gang rape and eventual death of Jyoti Singh Pandey in India’s capital city, New Delhi, is examined in this chapter. Drawing from past research, three main frames are discerned in the portrayal of women in the reports: mainstreaming gender, endangered woman, and the ungendered woman. Media portrayals of these three frames by three broadly categorized actors most prominently covered by the media reports are analyzed: activists, state representatives or political actors, and ordinary citizens. The findings suggest that while some reports allude to women’s agency and rights particularly when they cover feminist activists, women’s agency is marginalized in the debates around safety and protection for women when other actors (such as state representatives or political actors, and ordinary citizens) are considered. Indian women’s rights have been reduced to passive messages negating the broader politics of the contemporary women’s movement.

This review aims to focus on recent reported research work on the construction and function of different electrochemical DNA biosensors. It also describes different sensing materials, chemistries of immobilization probes, conditions of hybridization and principles of transducing and amplification strategies.

The human disease-related mutated genes or DNA sequence detection at low cost can be verified by the electrochemical-based biosensor. A range of different chemistries is used by the DNA-based electrochemical biosensors, out of which the interactions of nanoscale material with recognition layer and a solid electrode surface are most interesting. A diversity of advancements has been made in the field of electrochemical detection.

Some important aspects are also highlighted in this review, which can contribute in the creation of successful biosensing devices in the future.

This paper provides an updated review of construction and sensing technologies in the field of biosensing.

The need to improve the efficiency and quality of public services has increased the interest in innovation. This study seeks to understand the relationship between the Public Service Motivation (PSM) index and the profile of strategic-level public servants who are considered innovative.

Questionnaires were applied to the group of government managers who registered their projects in an innovation competition. Data were analyzed using t-test, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA).

This paper concluded that the PSM level of these innovative public servants is significantly greater than public servants overall. In terms of the profile of these innovative government managers, it was found that the majority were female, with a high level of education and a background in Information Technology.

The discovery that innovative government managers have a significantly higher PSM (p < 0.05) than public servants overall may be relevant, because it confirms a statistical tendency that it would be advantageous for policy-makers to invest in actions that increase public servant PSM since these servants with high PSM are more innovative.

This article has sought to fill a gap in studies that associate the level of PSM with the innovation practices in the public sector, as well as verify the profile of public servants with high levels of motivation in public service (PSM).

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the scientific information of various qualities of bael fruit juice used in traditional system of medicine for variety of purposes. Utilization of bael fruit juice in day-to-day life has great nutritional, therapeutic, and commercial importance. Bael fruit contains nutrients like vitamins (riboflavin), minerals, trace elements, energy and phytochemicals, including flavonoids, polyphenols and antioxidants, that have been shown to have varied health benefits. In past few decades, bael has been extensively studied for its medicinal properties by advanced scientific techniques, and a variety of bioactive compounds like marmelosin, tannins, alkaloids, coumarins, steroids, rutacine, y-sitosterol, psoralin, xanthotoxin, scopolotein, aegelemine, aegeline, marmeline, fragrine, dictamine, cinnamide and different derivatives of cinnamide have been isolated from its fruit juice.

The medicinal value of bael fruit is very high when the harvests just begin to ripen. As a result, it has a high demand as alternative medicine for curing the diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol, peptic ulcer, inflammation, diarrhea and dysentery, constipation, respiratory infection. Furthermore, the bael fruit juice has anticancer, cardio protective, antibacterial, antifungal, radio protective, antipyretic, analgesic, antioxidant, antiviral, anthelmintic and anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, wound healing properties. The ripe fruit juice is aromatic, has cooling and laxative effects, and arrests secretion or bleeding.

The unripe or half-ripe fruit juice is good for digestion, useful in preventing or curing scurvy, and it strengthens the stomach action. It helps in the healing of ulcerated intestinal surfaces and has appreciable activity against intestinal pathogenic organisms. The present review summarizes the scientific information of various qualities of bael fruit juice used in traditional system of medicine for a variety of purposes.

It is quite evident from this review that bael is an important medicinal herb and extensively used in Ayurveda, Siddha and other medicinal systems. Bael fruit juice is an excellent source of water and natural sugar and is important principally for containing vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, pigments, energy, organic acids, dietary fiber and other food components, which are the key factors in the medicinal value of this plant. Moreover, mechanisms of action of a few bioactive compounds have been identified so far.

This study aims to investigate the antecedents and consequences of green packaging behavior (GPB). A conceptual model has been developed wherein green packaging awareness (GPA) and green packaging initiatives (GPI) are precursors of GPB, and environmental concern and availability of various green packaging alternatives are moderators. The outcomes of GPB in terms of environmental and personal benefits are examined.

Unlike most papers focusing on green packaging from a marketing perspective, this study explores the behavior of rural households from 47 villages in southern India. A carefully crafted survey instrument was developed, and data were collected from 395 respondents. After checking the instrument’s psychometric properties, the results were analyzed using Hayes’s PROCESS macros.

The results indicate that GPA and GPI are positively associated with GPB, GPA predicts GPI, and GPI mediates the relationship between GPA and GPB. Furthermore, findings suggest that environmental concern moderates the relationship between GPI and GPB, and the three-way interaction between the availability of green packaging (second moderator), environmental concern (first moderator), and GPI influences the GPB. Moreover, the outcomes of GPB in terms of environmental and personal benefits are established.

This research has several theoretical implications. It documents that individual awareness of green packaging is a precursor to GPB. This study focused on the rural population from a developing country (India) and hence may suffer from a lack of generalizability across developed nations. However, the results could be generalizable across other developing nations worldwide.

This study motivates individuals to engage in proenvironmental behavior. Moreover, it highlights the importance of GPB in deriving environmental and personal benefits. It is also equally crucial for individuals to engage in proper waste management practices so that the environment is not polluted.

The findings from this research are helpful to society as it focuses on the proenvironmental behavior of individuals. Particularly concerning packaging, this study points out that buying products with green packaging and reusing and recycling such packages is essential to protect the environment.

This study fills the gaps in the literature by focusing on the GPB of the rural population. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the moderated-mediation model developed and tested in this research is the first of its kind and thus makes a significant contribution to the literature on green packaging and waste management.