The present study is an attempt to find out link between caste and employment in rural Maharashtra. The primary data was collected through schedule from 253 rural households of different social groups from all six divisions in Maharashtra. The study found differences among various social groups in access to land and employment. The scheduled castes were landless, depended upon farm and non-farm casual unskilled low wage employment and fewer in farm and non-farm self-employment. Government land or common land should be distributed among landless scheduled castes agricultural labourers on priority basis. There should be establishment of industries in rural areas to create skilled jobs. Giving access to credit and encouraging self-employment activities among scheduled castes can be an important initiative.

Keywords: Caste, Gender Discrimination, Land Holdings, Rural Employment

JEL Codes: J31, J71, Q15

Water is precious a natural resource. It is mainly used for agriculture, industrialization, domestic use, fisheries, power generation, water transportations and natural balance. In our country, 83 percent of water is used for agriculture, 12 percent for industrialization and only 5 percent for domestic use. In developed countries, water is used extensively for industrialization. India needs 167 liters of water per person per day by 2050 for increasing industrialization and urbanization. The dams are built on rivers for the purposes of irrigation, hydropower generation, drinking water supply, creation of recreational areas and specific improvements in the environment. The dams create reservoirs. With the increasing demand for water and energy in the world, the number and size of reservoirs are constantly increasing. Today, more than 4 million square kilometers of land have been submerged on the Earth. As a result, the rate of evaporation has increased and greenhouse gas emissions have increased. Although the dam is useful in many ways, the construction of the dam has caused environmental changes. The study concludes that the large sized dams in Maharashtra have reduced the intensity and frequency of floods. The research study found that 78.5 per cent of respondents said that the large dams had reduced the intensity and frequency of floods.

Keywords: Dams, Large Sized Dams, Impact, Environmental Impact, Positive Impact

The arrival of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has enhanced the progress of computer visualisation from many fields. However, most of the CNNs are rely on GPUs (graphics processing units) that could need the large computations and it requires more cost to develop the setup. Therefore, most of the manufacturers haven’t used the CNNs to inspect the defective items in their field. The researcher has developed a compact CNN-based model that not only achieves high performance on tiny defect inspection but can be run on low-frequency CPUs (central processing units) in this paper. This experiments indicate CNNs can be compact and hardware-friendly for future applications in the automated surface inspect (ASI) in the selected manufacturing field.

Keywords: Convolutional neural network; machine vision, Surface defective inspection.

The paper entitled, “Annals of Climate Change Finance: Retrospection”, discusses the theoretical setting behind the evolution of climate change finance along with the various tool which comes under it with a view to make a brief review of its evolution over the period of time and how it is labeled as climate change finance while tracing its root from the collective effort commenced at global level in 1948. The paper also seeks to answer whether the fund under this climate change finance is sufficient or not. If not, what should be done in the form of possible ways is also being extended under this paper. The paper suggests what should be done in the form of possible ways in the climate change policy with special reference to global economies.

Keywords: Climate Change Finance, Global Economies, Climate Change Policy, G20.

The present paper makes an attempt to measure the concentration of India’s petroleum product imports along with various sub-categories for the time period 1996-97 to 2019-20 by using the concentration ratio index. The finding exhibited that LPG, naphtha, Lubes and other sub-categories are listed among top four product concentrated sub-categories due to the wider application in different sectors of Indian Economy. Overall the country concentration measures depicted that India’s import of LPG, Naphtha, Lubes are less concentrated (i.e., diversified) during the last six years of the study period.

Keywords: Product Concentration, Country Concentration, India, Petroleum Products, Imports.

JEL codes: C43, F10, Q4.

This study was carried out to ascertain the impact of derivative securities on commercial banks’ performance in Nigeria between 2014 and 2021 using aggregated annual time series data. The data for the study was sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin, Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) Bulletin and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) Annual Reports. Profit before tax of commercial banks in Nigeria was used as proxy for commercial banks’ performance, foreign exchange derivative, financial derivative and money market derivative were used as proxy for derivative securities. Following unity in the order of integration, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) was used to analyse data. The result of data analysis revealed that foreign exchange derivative and money market derivative recorded significant positive impact on performance of commercial banks in Nigeria while financial derivative had significant negative impact of performance of commercial banks in Nigeria. The study recommend that commercial banks in Nigeria should continue to use derivative securities to hedge against exchange rate fluctuations by increasing the amount of funds committed to this security to further hedge against risk inherent in foreign exchange trading and enhance profit of these banks at the same time. Also, Central Bank of Nigeria should develop local derivative financial instruments that Nigerian banks can readily access to mitigate their risky position in the financial sector.

Keywords: Derivative, Commercial bank, Nigeria Securities, Performance, Swap, Forward, Futures

The primary goal of this research was to determine how Nigeria’s contributory pension system affected the country’s Human Development Index. The National Pension Commission Annual Report and the Central Bank Statistics Bulletin were used to collect the data for this ex-post-facto study’s analysis. A model was developed based on empirical and theoretical reviews to accomplish this goal. The dependent variable in the model was the Human Development Index, and the independent variables were private sector pension funds, public sector pension funds, and total pension funds. The Fully Modified Least Squares (FMOLS) model was used in this study to examine the data. The results of this study showed that total pension funds, private sector pension funds, and public sector pension funds all had positive and significant effects on the human development index within the parameters of this study, with p-values of 0.0000, 0.0000, and 0.0031, respectively. The inference result led to the conclusion that Nigeria’s economic progress had been positively and significantly impacted by the contributory pension program. Providing timely pension payments to beneficiaries in the public and private sectors will stimulate economic growth by introducing cash into the economy. The researcher concludes from the foregoing that the government should ensure that pension payments are made on time, in accordance with the Pension Reform Act of 2014; if this is accomplished, the human development index would be enhanced through an increase in the citizens’ standard of living.

Keywords: Contributory Pension Scheme, Pension Reforms, Private Sector Funds, Public Sector Funds, Total Pension Funds, Human Development Index