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Both branch and automated teller machine (ATM) are playing a crucial role in banking coverage expansion in India. People prefer to go to an ATM for withdrawal of money rather waiting in a queue for hours at a branch. Without the existence of a full-fledged brick-and-mortar branch, ATM also plays an important role by providing basic banking services. In India, a significant part of the population is excluded from banking access. The present study aims to investigate how the branch and ATM penetration influence financial inclusion.

The study covers the period from 2008–2009 to 2019–2020. With the application of Welch's t-test, a comparative study is being conducted between branch and ATM. Further, with the application of regression analysis, the study analyses how the branch and ATM network expansion influence financial inclusion.

Though in recent times customers prefers to visit an ATM and its growth rate is higher than branches, the study found no significant differences between the growth of branch and ATM. Further, results of regression show both branches and ATMs have significant impacts on financial inclusion.

In micro concept both have a common role in respect of service provided to customers. While in macro concept a list of specific services can be provided through branch level only. This study has a significant role, considering the importance of branches or ATMs and cost of installing a physical branch.

Access to finance, especially by the poor and marginalized section of the population, is a prerequisite for creating employment opportunities, economic growth, poverty reduction and social cohesion. Access to finance makes transactions quicker, cheaper and safer. Most people around the world having an account in a formal financial institution serve as an entry point into formal financial sector. This study aims to analyze the status of financial inclusion in Assam with respect to demographic penetration, geographic penetration and usage ratio, i.e. credit–deposit ratio.

The study covers a period of 12 years from 2007–08 to 2018–19. Both the parametric and non-parametric statistical tools have been used to analyze the various dimensions of financial inclusion.

The study clearly indicates that there is a significant difference between Assam and aggregate India in financial inclusion and the status of Assam is somewhat lower as compared to the aggregate financial inclusion status of India. To achieve a satisfactory level of financial inclusion, it is not enough to open a bank account for the excluded people, but banks must look at flexibility and timeliness in services to offer a complete package to this segment of the population.

The study is a significant attempt to meet the shortcomings and improve banking coverage for achieving financial inclusion.

Bank mobilizes savings and transforms it into credit for investments in various sectors, which helps the economy running. The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of three bank groups in India with data spanning from 2009–2010 to 2018–2019.

The study uses data envelopment analysis for measuring the efficiency of the selected banks. It measures the efficiency both from the revenue dimension and from the supply-side dimension of financial inclusion.

The study finds that foreign banks on average are working efficiently far better than the public-sector and private-sector banks. It indicates that foreign banks in India are operating at 92.53% efficiency level, whereas private- and public-sector banks are operating at 90.20 and 86.04% efficiency levels, respectively. Further, the result of the Friedman test reveals that there is no significant difference in efficiency scores amongst these three bank groups. As major challenges, non-performing assets of the banking industry to be reduced by 15% as radial and 53.18% as slack.

One of the notable innovativeness of this study is that, unlike most of the previous studies that are mostly selected few banks and specific group, the present study may place itself as a unique inquiry in the domain of technical efficiency in macro concept by considering three major bank groups operating in India. An important contribution of the study is the classification of reasons behind the inefficiency, i.e. managerial or inappropriate scale size and further projections of input factors for the same level of output.

This study aims to examine the influence of corporate governance variables on firm performance and also to find out whether the corporate governance mechanism is capable of mitigating the vertical agency crisis. Here the researcher uses corporate governance mechanisms such as board meeting frequency, board independence, percentage of non-executive directors, percentage of woman directors on board and the board size to measure the firm performance and, at the same time, tries to mitigate the agency crisis, which is measured through return on asset and asset turnover ratio.

The present study considers period from 2009 to 2020 with data corresponding to a panel of 271 non-financial firms listed in 500 NSE index, India. The study introduces a panel regression model to analyze the data collected from the sample firms.

The study detects a positive as well as a statistically significant relationship between board size and vertical agency cost. The study also observes a negative relationship between board independence and agency cost. Further, the study finds a positive relationship between corporate governance variables and firm performance, though it is non-significant.

As the study progresses, the study detects a negative relationship between non-executive directors and agency costs. This study tries to give policy prescription to the corporate policymaker regarding various measures to be taken by the firm for the improvement of firm performance and reduction of owner and manager conflict inside the company. The study fills the literature gap by revealing a significant relationship between corporate governance, vertical agency crisis and firm performance.

An inclusive financial system is essential to develop the country’s economy. A massive shift in financial inclusion was observed by the initiative of government to include financially excluded into the formal financial system by launching Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) in 2014. This paper aims to attempt to examine the efficiency of public sector banks in financial inclusion during pre and post introduction of PMJDY.

The data envelopment analysis is used to measure the efficiency of the banks towards financial inclusion for the periods, 2010–2011 to 2013–2014 as pre-introduction and 2014–2015 to 2017–2018 as post-introduction phase. For this study, supply-side parameters of financial inclusion considered as input variables and demand-side parameters as output variables.

The study finds that overall average efficiency towards financial inclusion increases significantly during post-phase, though all the public sector banks are not performing equally. There is a significant variation in efficiency level between them and even between the two periods. Further, there is a huge opportunity to enhance technical efficiency with the same quantity of input which will help to achieve the target of financial inclusion.

A comparative study between the two phases has taken place to analyse the impact of the scheme on the technical efficiency of banks. One of the notable innovativeness of this study is that, unlike most of the previous studies which are mostly theoretical and conceptual, the present study may place itself as a unique inquiry in the domain of efficiency review of public sector banks during pre and post introduction of PMJDY.

The purpose of this study is to provide a review of the existing research landscape on work-life balance and women’s career motivation. It examines the relationship between work-life balance and career motivation in the context of Indian women. Specifically, it explores how the work-life balance of women influences the motivational aspects of their careers.

The research uses a systematic literature review to identify and analyze relevant literature on work-life balance and women’s career motivation among Indian women from the Scopus database.

The study uncovers critical insights into the connection between work-life balance and women’s career decisions. It gives insight on how work-life balance significantly impacts women’s career choices. The SLR reveals a notable and consistent upward trend in the domains of work-life balance and career motivation among women.

The findings of this study can inform organizations in tailoring policies that foster women’s career growth while simultaneously supporting a healthy work-life balance. In addition, the research can empower women to make informed decisions about their careers and personal lives. Ultimately, it contributes to creating a more inclusive and gender-equitable work environment, promoting both women’s career aspirations and their overall well-being.

This research stands out in its examination of the relationship between work-life balance and women’s career motivation, particularly in the unique context of Indian women. While previous studies have explored these topics individually, this research bridges the gap by investigating their interplay. Moreover, the application of a systematic literature review approach to these variables in the context of Indian women represents a novel contribution.

In this chapter, we aim to illustrate some of the forms taken by informal employment in the global south and how these can best be understood by adopting a wider analytical lens than has been applied in much of the precarious employment literature. We draw on the findings of a recent study of the working conditions of urban informal workers from 10 cities in the global south. The study consisted of focus groups (15 in each city) conducted through the framework of a participatory informal economy appraisal as well as a survey of 1,957 home-based workers, street vendors, and waste pickers. Our findings illustrate a number of ways in which these three groups of informal workers are embedded within the formal economy. While they are not engaged in wage employment, they play subordinate roles to both formal sector firms within global production networks and unequal production relations and to the state through, inter alia, constrained access to public spaces and regulation. In order to interpret these findings, we apply Agarwala’s (2009) “relational” lens to demonstrate how risks and costs are transferred to workers who constitute the “real economy” in much of the global south. Given the often disguised connections between informal employment and the formal economy, this approach also provides a bridge to understanding precarious working conditions and the effects of globalization outside of the industrialized north.

For India, with its low agricultural productivity and huge population, land acquisition has always been a serious policy challenge in the installation of land-intensive power projects. India has experienced a large number of projects getting stalled because of land conflict. Yet, there is a paucity of literature pertinent to India that tries to estimate future land requirements taking into consideration of land occupation metric.

In the present study, the dynamic land transformation and land occupation metrics of nine energy sources, both conventional and renewable, are estimated to further determine the magnitude of land requirement that India needs to prepare itself to fulfil its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) commitments. This is illustrated through two different scenarios of energy requirement growth rates, namely, conservative and advanced.

This analysis suggests that, while nuclear energy entails the lowest dynamic land transformation when land occupation metric is taken into account, waste to energy source possesses least land requirement, followed by coal-fired source. Hydro energy source has highest requirement both in terms of dynamic land transformation and land occupation. It is also seen that land requirement will be 96% and 120% more in INDC scenario than business as usual (i.e. if India continues with its current share of renewables in its energy portfolio in 2030) considering a conservative and an advanced growth rate, respectively.

Some policy recommendations are provided that may aid policymakers to better address the trade-off between clean energy and land and incorporate it into policy planning. This study has not been able to consider future technical efficiency improvement possibilities for all energy sources, which can be incorporated in the proposed framework for further insight.

This paper provides a framework for estimation of future land requirement to fulfil India’s INDC energy plans which is not available in existing literature. The authors confirm that this manuscript is an original work.

Women empowerment becomes an important policy discussion in development economics and modernization theory. The empowerment of women can lead to an increase in the quality viz-a-viz the capacity of human resources accessible for economic development. The purpose of this study is to evidence the impact of social and economic dimensions on women empowerment through financial inclusion in rural India.

To reveal the research objective, the study has utilized a primary survey of women respondents from the Gujarat state of India by a simple random sampling method and applied a logistic regression approach to identify the relationship between the need of a bank account (determinant of financial inclusion) as a dependent variable and social and economic dimensions of women empowerment such as earning status, participation in financial decision-making, recipient of social welfare schemes and perception towards the safety of saving as independent variables.

The results of this study show that earning status, participation in financial decision-making at household level and recipient of social welfare schemes by women have a significant impact on women empowerment through financial inclusion; however, safety of their savings is observed as an insignificant variable, yet the odd value is very high (2.437) in the present study.

The present study is the first of its kind to examine the social and economic status of women and its impact on their requirement of a formal bank account for the overall empowerment of women in rural India.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the corrosion properties of laser nitrided Ti‐6Al‐4V alloys that have been reported previously by several researchers.

Different kinds of surface nitriding methods of titanium alloys, such as plasma nitriding, ion nitriding, gas and laser nitriding, are introduced. Microstructure changes, such as phase formation and the influence of laser processing parameters in laser nitriding layers of Ti‐6Al‐4V alloys, were investigated using scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, X‐ray photo‐electron spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction. Based on investigations presented in the literature, the effect of laser nitriding on the corrosion behavior of Ti‐6Al‐4V alloy was reviewed.

By regulating the laser processing parameter, the microstructure of the nitrided layer can be controlled to optimize corrosion properties. This layer improves corrosion behavior in most environments, due to the formation of a continuous TiNxOy passive film, which can retard the ingress of corrosive ions into the substrate and can maintain a constant value of a current density. Therefore, the laser gas nitrided specimens have a relatively noble corrosion potential and a very small corrosion current, as compared to untreated specimens.

This paper comprises a critical review, and its collection of references is useful. It summarizes current knowledge in laser surface treatment research.