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There has been a period of slow but a steady increase in wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing sector since the mid‐1980s, which has gone hand‐in‐hand with an increase in the relative employment of skilled workers across all industries in the same period. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the co‐movement of relative employment and wages of skilled workers can be attributed to the changes in trade policy that has occurred in the Indian economy since the mid‐1980s.

The two dominant theoretical perspectives on why trade reforms lay lead to wage inequality are Heckscher–Ohlin theory and trade‐induced skill‐biased technological change (SBTC). The paper evaluates the applicability of these theoretical perspectives to the Indian case using disaggregated industry data from Annual Survey of Industries from 1973 to 1997.

Evidence was found of the validity of both the two dominant theoretical perspectives on wage inequality to explain the co‐movement in wage inequality and relative skill intensity in Indian manufacturing, with both variables increasing in the 1990s. Trade‐induced technological progress has led to an increase in relative skill intensity and wage inequality within industries. At the same time, the decline in protection that seems to have occurred more in unskilled labour‐intensive industries has led to a relative fall in the economy‐wide return to unskilled labour relative to skilled labour. Therefore, trade reforms have led to a widening of wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers, and an increase in relative skill intensity in Indian manufacturing.

The paper contributes to support of the trade‐induced SBTC hypothesis which may provide a consistent explanation of why many countries in the south experienced increases in wage inequality with the onset of trade liberalisation.

Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party made fighting corruption as a major election plank, and won the 2014 elections, and formed the National Democratic Alliance government – a majority party government in India in nearly 30 years. Modi was re-elected in May 2019 with a bigger majority. As his government celebrates the second term, it is time to assess the last five years’ accomplishments in fighting corruption. This chapter deals with the subject under four major headings. The first examines the efficacy of existing anti-corruption agencies. The second explains the office of Lokpal (Ombudsman). The third analyses the initial challenges and efforts of the Modi government. The fourth draws some conclusions.

Feminist contributions to debates on gender, poverty, and social justice have deepened our understanding of the ways gender as a structuring principle of social life and an embedded hierarchy of values produces different concepts and experience of poverty as well as adds new meaning to the idea of “human flourishing.” Gender inequality remains a major barrier to human development; the disadvantages facing women and girls are a major source of inequality; since women and girls are discriminated against in health, education, political representation, and labor market, which has negative repercussions for development of their capabilities and their freedom of choice, remaining far away from social justice (Nussbaum, 1995). Recent statistics show just how far societies are from achieving gender equality. In the above backdrop, the chapter focuses on the position and status of women in India in the realm of gender equality, poverty reduction, and social justice as well as the public actions viewed from India's perspectives. At the same time it highlights the importance of global actions in an endeavor to establish gender equality, breaking the chain of poverty trap and establishing social justice along with their fallouts in the subsequent years.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of brand equity in handling service failure and examine the effects of brand equity on service recovery.

A conceptual framework is proposed which includes that satisfaction, as a mediator, accounts for the relationship between service recovery attributes (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) and post‐recovery behavior (repatronage intentions and word‐of‐mouth behavior). More importantly, brand equity is used to serve as the moderator in the hypothesized research model. Structural equation modeling techniques are applied to data collected from a field study in Taiwan to test the framework.

Results from the current field study found that strong brand equity provides an overall advantage over weak brands in increasing service recovery satisfaction and behavior intentions (repatronage intentions and word‐of‐mouth behavior).

The data used in this study were collected in a single metropolitan area in Taiwan. Future research might be conducted in a variety of countries.

Service recovery strategies in responding to service failures are part of the critical task for service managers. This paper suggests that building brand equity is a means by which post‐failure satisfaction and behavioral intentions may be enhanced.

This is the first study to completely compare the high brand equity with low brand equity in the effect of service recovery.

The purpose of this paper is to make a strong case for investing in information and communication technologies (ICT) for building up of quality human resource capital for economic upliftment of India. An attempt has been made to explore the possibilities of online learning (OL)/e‐learning towards building up of quality human resources in higher education for a developing nation like India. A comprehensive environmental scanning of various e‐learning experiments, tools, projects to facilitate e‐learning or various institutional level efforts has been carried out. The paper also seeks to highlight the options available with traditional institutes for deploying ICT and for implementing e‐learning.

The paper is a descriptive account of the contemporary situation in India with regard to education especially e‐learning and draws on a variety of secondary sources both published and unpublished.

Argues that the development of e‐learning has been limited and reasons out why. The challenges of traditional face‐to‐face education vis‐à‐vis e‐learning in India are enlisted and suggestions for management of the e‐learning process by institutes which intend to venture into e‐learning are enumerated. The paper advocates the urgency for the traditional institutions to put an impetus on investment in ICT for providing e‐instruction for delivery of knowledge by riding the information super highway.

Presents a review of literature developed from secondary sources.

Models of e‐learning that exclude any face‐to‐face contact may have limited prospects, but blended learning offers significant potential both on and off campus and should be pursued if the benefits of e‐learning are to be fully realized.

This paper provides a useful overview of a scenario of OL/e‐learning in India's higher education; and, from this summary of the present situation, goes on to suggest possible ways to transform the “digital divide” into “digital opportunities”.

Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) is a promising technology, which seems to be the prospective substitute for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). It is a high speed, high density and low power paradigm producing efficient circuits. These days, most of the smart devices used for computing, make use of random access memory (RAM). To enhance the performance of a RAM cell, researchers are putting effort to minimize its area and access time. Multilayer structures in QCA framework are area efficient, fast and immune to the random interference. Unlike CMOS, QCA multilayer architectures can be designed using active components on different layers. Thus, using multilayer topology in the design of a RAM cell, which is not yet reported in the literature can improve the performance of RAM and hence, the computing device. This paper aims to present the modular design of RAM cell with multilayer structures in the QCA framework. The fundamental modules such as XOR gate, 2:1 multiplexer and D latch are proposed here using multilayer formations with the goal of designing a RAM cell with the provision of read, write, set and reset control.

All the modules used to design a RAM cell are designed using multilayer approach in QCA framework.

The proposed multilayer RAM cell is optimized and has shown an improvement of 20% in cell count, 30% in area, 25% in area latency product and 48.8% in cost function over the other efficient RAM designs with set/reset ability reported earlier. The proposed RAM cell is further analyzed for the fault tolerance and power dissipation.

Due to the multilayer structure, the complexity of the circuit enhances which can be eliminated using simple architectures.

The performance metrics and results obtained establish that the multilayer approach can be implemented in the QCA circuit to produce area efficient and optimized sequential circuits such as a latch, flip flop and memory cells.

The purpose of this paper is to propose incorporating another theoretical perspective enabling corporate social responsibility (CSR) to be approached more structurally and with correspondingly broader impacts. Despite CSR being associated with competitive advantage and providing recognised sustainability related benefits, it is argued that the individual CSR results of each company and community acting separately remain insufficient not only in terms of individual competitiveness but also in terms of achieving a global and systemic improvement.

It is from this perspective that the clusters concept and the territorial social responsibility (SR) concept are advanced as susceptible to bringing important insights for advancing SR. This article seeks to reflect on the potential of SR networks for strengthening competitiveness and bringing about sustainable development. Based upon a theoretical review of the CSR literature, limitations are discussed before setting out alternative action strategies for the construction of networks focusing upon generating territorial dynamics within the logic of global sustainability.

The idea of CSR clusters and territorial SR presupposes groupings of companies located in the same territory and engaged in some degree of interaction with other local actors to optimise practices contributing towards sustained regional development in an integrated and global perspective. The definition of social goals shared by different actors structured within a network thus improves the design and implementation of actions that extend beyond a micro-scale of action, with significant benefits accruing to local communities. Analysis of these forms of social innovation, based on integrated CSR networks, constitutes the central objective of the present research.

This theoretical perspective is, in turn, based upon the assumption that only the consideration of a wider and more extensive conception of CSR, which aligns and guides various social actors (companies, civil society organisations and local authorities) and seeks to nurture integrated SR networks, will be able to drive development characterised by significant higher levels of sustainability.

These concepts (SR clusters and territorial SR) presuppose groupings of companies located in the same territory and engaged in some degree of interaction with other local actors are able to optimise practices contributing towards sustained regional development from an integrated and global perspective. The definition of social goals shared by different actors structured within a network thus improves the design and implementation of actions that extend beyond a micro-scale of action, with significant benefits accruing to local communities.

Considering a larger scope of intervention, connecting different social actors (companies, civil society organisations and local authorities) and working for the construction of a development model based on the concept of sustainability constitute the relevance of clusters to CSR and the SR of territories.

This article highlights the position that SR, to have any effective and widespread impact, has to extend beyond isolated actions uncoordinated with overall territorial development. The challenge involves establishing a connection between the business level and civil society organisations in which each acts within their own spheres and with their respective specific competences and skills whilst able to ensure cooperation and engagement in actions focussed upon improving the quality of life of the host community and bringing about cluster development in overall terms. This theoretical perspective is, in turn, based upon the assumption that only the consideration of a wider and more extensive conception of CSR, which aligns and guides various social actors (companies, civil society organisations and local authorities) and seeks to nurture integrated SR networks, will be able to drive development characterised by significantly higher levels of sustainability.

This paper aims to begin to remedy deficiencies in the understanding of how the increased focus on service, even in manufacturing environments, relates to consumer desire for relationships. The role of relationships in both services and physical goods has taken on a new meaning that should be further explored.

The qualitative study reported in this paper examines the extent to which consumers feel that they are in relationships with companies from a variety of product categories that range from search goods (easy to evaluate in advance of purchase) to credence goods (difficult to evaluate). The analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with 20 customers.

The results identify when consumers place an emphasis on specific relational behaviors in evaluating the product use experience. Specifically, trust, commitment and expertise seemed more important when products were difficult to evaluate in advance, whereas social benefits and special treatment were mentioned with search and credence products more than experience products.

The results are exploratory and should be replicated and extended utilizing a larger, more representative sample before they are generalized to market.

The results have important implications for practitioners in both manufacturing and service industries, as they decide when and how to differentiate their service components and pursue relationships with consumers. Firms need to stand out from a service perspective.

The manuscript develops a more robust understanding of the relational behaviors that matter to customers and provides recommendations about how to best manage them.

This study aims to analyze the structure and trend in employment in the Indian economy between 1980-8081 and 2015-2016.

Use of India KLEMS data set. Estimate growth rate of employment and discuss employment prospects using “Point” employment elasticity.

Whilst India’s GDP growth rate has been quite impressive since the reforms of 1991, the rate of employment growth, especially in the recent period of 2003-2015, has been quite slow (1 per cent) with low employment elasticity (0.1). The pattern of employment growth has also been imbalanced with slow rate of employment growth in manufacturing and rapid growth rate in the construction sector. India now also has low labour force participation rate and a large share of informal employment in the economy.

The limitation is the lack of reliable data on employment for the recent period.

With overall low employment elasticity, India would have to explore sectors where more employment opportunities could be created.

India has to create not only more jobs but also “good” jobs.

The India KLEMS data provide a time series for employment, which has been used in this paper to find “Point” elasticity instead of arc elasticity of employment and is an improvement over existing employment elasticity estimates.