Human Development refers to creating an environment which protects the fundamental human rights by ensuring a holistic development of human beings and its surroundings. The health sector being an indispensible element for development of a nation play... s a pivotal role in this regard. Health and socio-economic conditions are interrelated and one cannot be achieved without the other. In India public health sector still occupies a significant position with respect to delivering health services. Particularly, in the state of West Bengal public hospitals (teaching and general) are the focal points of health delivery as West Bengal leads in this respect compared to other states of the country and thus maintaining a healthy environment in the public hospitals is important for both health service provider and health service recipient. With the advancement of human civilization the rapid growth of population along with industrialization has led to an expansion of urban civilization which in turn has escalated environmental pollution as a result of which the hospital environment has also faced the severe consequences of it. Nowadays various types of pollutions have disrupted healthy human life. The change in climate along with poverty has also contributed massively in creating this public health emergency. Thus, the fundamental purpose of ensuring the expansion of human capabilities and widening choices through equality, sustainability, productivity and empowerment is at stake. In this article an attempt has been made to review the impact of pollution on patients in the public teaching hospitals in Kolkata and to judge their perception in this respect. Five major teaching or medical college hospitals have been selected for the period 2015 to 2018.Read More...Read Less...

This study utilized the ‘CAMELS’ parameter as identified by Narashimam Committee to judge the financial performance of selected 40 banks during the study period 2006 to 2018. Key parameters considered here to judge the financial performance of ba... nks are Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Non-performing Assets (NPA), Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Return on Investment (ROI), Cost of Deposits (COD), Net Interest Margin (NIM), Burden-asset ratio (BAR) and Credit-deposit Ratio (CDR). This paper has constructed a performance index of selected banks using Taxonomic approach. Constructed Financial performance index of these banks are regressed on following parameters, namely, bank size(Log assets), Interest income-loan ratio, Non-interest expenses-asset Ratio, equity-asset ratio to judge whether financial performance of banks depend on bank size, operating efficiency, nonbanking performance and solvency of these banks. Results showed that capital adequacy ratio continued to be very high for foreign banks in comparison with private banks. CAR of public sector banks were usually in the lower side. Public Sector banks have more NPA and foreign banks have low level of NPA in India. This study inferred that desperate credit-mobilization drive may be detrimental for financial performance of banks. Panel regression estimate had inferred that financial performance of these banks has improved with the increase in size of banks as well as equity holding of these banks. Expenses other than interest had affected the financial performance adversely though interest incomes of these banks did not have any impact on performance of these banks.Read More...Read Less...

In the period after bank nationalisation in India, this country witnessed a large scale expansion of bank credit to agriculture along with the spread of bank branches to the rural areas.Researchers also found its positive impact in reducing rural pov... erty and increase inemployment. This was the period when indebtedness among cultivators declined sharply with rising availability of agricultural credit in rural areas. The indebtedness amongst cultivators started increasing from the beginning of 1990s and the All India Debt Investment Survey in 2013 found that incidence of indebtedness among the rural cultivators had almost reached the level of pre bank nationalisation period of 1960s. The share of credit that the cultivators are forced to take from non-institutional sources has still remained as high as 36 per cent. The money lenders have reinstated themselves in rural areas in the post liberalisation period. This is vindicated with their share of credit to cultivators increasing from 17.2 per cent in 1991 to as high as 26.8 per cent in 2002. This situation has not changed for a decade in spite of a robust agricultural credit growth since 2004. Share of credit to farmers from money lenders has actually increased to 29.6 per cent in 2013. The money lenders’ hand has been strengthened in the rural areas mainly due to the apathy of the public sector banks to disburse the small ticket credit to small and marginal peasants.Read More...Read Less...

West Bengal is the pioneering state in establishment of the three tier panchayats system for rural government in India. West Bengal government, strengthening the institutional capacity of gram panchayat with initiated the Institutional Strengthening ... of Gram Panchayat (ISGP) project in 2010 with associated from World Bank. The main focus on this paper is to how the ISGP project increased the performance level of the gram panchayats and also monitoring the project planning, budgeting and procurement of overall functioning.Read More...Read Less...

Climate change has multi-dimensional effect among which effect on human health is most concerned. Farmers and workers of agricultural field are highly exposed to the vulnerability of climate change. In India 60 to 70% population is engaged directly o... r indirectly in agriculture, who is contributing 16 – 17% of the GDP. People engage in agriculture have to spend more than 6 to 7 hours in the field at day time, thus very much exposed to the sunlight. Sun stroke or heat stroke is one of the inevitable consequences of global warming. Present study tries to analyse the vulnerability of climate change on the basis of suffering from heat stroke by thepeople of different states of India. There is wide disparity among the states of India regarding heat stroke mortality but all are suffering from the harsh consequences of global warming. The study is to find out the effect of climate change on different states of India with respect to heat stroke mortality and to observe the effect of different heat indicators on human health. A 22 years interstate panel study compares this climate vulnerability in India in terms of death due to heat stroke. Descriptive study highlights state wise health hazard contemplating climate change. Index of death and heat intensity has been discussed by radars. Heat Intensity, Heat Intensity Square, Average Rainfall, Gross Sown Area Index etc. has significant effect on death. Few states like AP, UP, Odisha are very much exposed to the vulnerability. There is interstate heterogeneity in heat stroke mortality and other explanatory variables. Read More...Read Less...

Following the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) by India in July 1991, Government of India (GoI) has started viewing banks as commercially organized profit driven financial institutions whose viability depends upon their ability to make profi... t. Like all capitalist economies, India is also subject to trade cycles and onset of a recession leads to a drop in banks’ profit levels and an increase in their stock of non-performing assets. This prompts the government to ask banks to tighten lending norms and maintaining adequate capital buffer as mandated by minimum capital requirement norm. This paper develops a simple baseline model to examine the implications of this kind of a policy. It shows that the policy noted above deepens recession, increases inequality and exacerbates the problem of non-performing assets and lowers profit. It also shows that, instead of taking the banks and the defaulting firms to task for a factor that is completely beyond their control, the best way of tackling this problem is to adopt appropriate stabilization programmes to counter the recession.Read More...Read Less...

The Indian Society has travelled from equal status to a male dominated one, reflecting the women as the weaker section. With the passage of time the society has progressed and now we have a number of rules and regulations established for providing se... curity and special status to women. The Indian judicial system and financial system are also maintaining special provisions of law for betterment of women. August, 2013 has brought in a new era in the history of company law in India. The history of corporate India witnessed a landmark action by the introduction of the new Companies Act on 29th August, 2013. The new Act introduces a new provision relating to Women Directors. This noble act instils a new outlook on boardroom management. The new Companies Act 2013 enacts that every listed company and every other company having paid-up share capital of one hundred crore rupees or more or having a turnover of three hundred crore rupees or more, shall have at least one women director. This mandatory requirement to appoint women on the board is expected to bring diversity as wellas women potentials. The present paper focuses on the issue of representation of women directors on the board of some selected private sector and public sector banks prior to and after the introduction of the new Companies Act. It highlights the comparative situation regarding composition of the board of these banks and position of women directors on the board of those selected banks as animpact of the vast changes in corporate laws. Read More...Read Less...