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A Study on the Impact of Microfinance in Women Empowerment with Specific Reference to ESAF Microfinance and Investments Pvt. Ltd. (EMFIL)
This study attempts to understand the impact of microfinance on women empowerment, in terms of changes in income and savings, preference for formal sources of credit, socio-economic status, and political participation. The study also attempts to find whether the members of a private microfinance institution are satisfied with the services offered by them. The study was conducted on a sample of 220 women beneficiaries of microfinance services of a leading MFI operating in Kerala state. The sample was selected by convenience sampling. The results of the study show that microfinance programs have created a positive impact to its beneficiaries. Majority of the respondents are engaged in various income generating activities because of the credit facilities provided by microfinance institutions. This resulted in a significant change in their income level and savings after participating in microfinance programs. This has helped them to earn income for their family and also enabled them to play an important role in their family and also in society. After joining microfinance programs they also preferred formal financial institutions for availing credit facilities. It was also found that microfinance has empowered women socially, economically and politically. The results also indicated that the MFI selected for the study was able to provide good service to its members and the members were satisfied on the services offered by the MFI. Keywords: Microfinance, Microfinance Institutions (MFI), Women Empowerment, Social, Economic and Political Empowerment. -
A Model for the Secured Data Transfer of Healthcare Data by Image Steganography and Cryptography Techniques
Health care domain and related issues have evoked a lot of attention from researchers in the recent past. Ensuring the Security and Privacy of data of patients having classified disease is of utmost importance to the health care sector. From time immemorial cryptography and steganography techniques were used to provide data security. In health care domain, classified disease is the area of investigation as the patients having classified disease always prefer more security and privacy. The objective of this research work is to extract the benefits of cryptography and steganography techniques and to apply the combination of these security mechanisms to develop an algorithm that gives more security and privacy than existing techniques. The proposed algorithm builds on Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (RSA)algorithm which is considered to be one of the classical algorithms in cryptography. RSA is widely used in the encryption-decryption process for data transfer in internet which ensures the security of data in transit. The data encrypted using RSA is provided with one more layer of protection by calculating the message digest of the same. The message digest of encrypted data is calculated using message digest (MD5) algorithm. The steganographic approach of spread spectrum gives better security as it is always robust against statistical attacks and provides added security to the cryptographic protected data. Finally the Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) method is used for transformation. Combination of cryptographic technique and steganographic techniques offers higher level security to the data dealt in health care domain. Image type is a major factor contributing to the performance of the proposed algorithm. In recent years the open sources such as internet shows rapid usage of images especially Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) image format as it occupies comparatively less space and provides better image quality even after applying image transformation. So medical image format type selected for the discussed research work is of JPEG format. Medical images of patients like X-ray of lung, bilateral section of face etc. are taken as cover image for the developed algorithm. Patients personal data is very confidential which is in the textual format is encrypted using RSA algorithm, then message digest is incorporated to keep the encrypted data homogeneous and then it is embedded in the cover image using DWT technique. The performance of the algorithm developed is measured on the basis of peak signal to noise which is a statistical method. The peak signal to noise ratio measurement is used as a visual quality measurement to simulate human perception as the difference between original image and embedded image seems to be identical as per developed algorithm. PSNR ratio is measured for various medical images selected. Noise ratio is also measured for Lena image as it is considered as a standard cover image in the steganography. Noise ratio of the selected medical images are measured and compared against cropped medical images. The results of the above research exercise presented in the thesis, infers that the proposed algorithm Raster Data protection algorithm provides enhanced security to the embedded medical images dealt within the health care sector, with minimal side effect on the quality of the image. KEYWORDS: Cryptography, Steganography, Health care, Security, JPEG, PSNR. -
A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Malayalam Newspapers during the 2016 Assembly Election
I am immensely grateful for the everlasting love and grace of the Almighty God for granting me wisdom and guiding me to complete this study successfully. I would like to thank Dr (Fr) Abraham V M, Vice- Chancellor, Christ University, Bengaluru for giving me the opportunity to pursue research and facilitating me to complete my study. I thank Mr. Padmakumar, Head of the Department of Media Studies for being always approachable, understanding and infusing positivity that motivated me to persist in my endeavours with conviction that has enabled me to complete my thesis. I express my sincere thanks to my guide and supervisor Dr. Pradeep Thomas J.A Department of Media studies, Christ University, Bengaluru for his constant supervision, mentoring and valuable inputs throughout the course of my study. I thank the department of Media Studies for taking time out and guiding my thesis at every stage. I have been able to build my thesis with all your valuable insights. I sincerely thank all my M.Phil. professors for their constant help and guidance. I express my heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Sukumaran Potti (Chairman, Kerala Cartoon Academy), Mr. Baiju Paulose (Staff Cartoonist, Malayala Manorama), Unnikrishnan K (Chief Sub Editor, Mathrubhumi), V R Rajesh (cartoonist, Madhyamam), T.K Sujith (staff cartoonist, Keralakaumudi) and Satish Acharya, renowned Indian cartoonist for taking part in the study and giving valuable contribution for the study. Finally, I am thankful to my parents, brother and my friends for their constant encouragement, moral support, continuous inspiration and prayers to carry out this dissertation successfully. -
East West Interface In 20Th Century India: Analysis Of Western Women???S Responses
In the twenty-first century, the Western world is seeking a greater understanding of the people and nations of Asia, India in particular. The thesis, ???East West Interface in 20th century India: Analysis of Western women???s responses??? is an attempt to illuminate at least an aspect of that interface during a given period of the past, so as to help shed some light on the present day Western approach to India. Throughout the colonial period, Western women got attracted to India. However, during the 20th century, arrival of four eminent Western women from diverse backgrounds, with different intentions had far-reaching impact for India. Katherine Mayo, Margaret Elizabeth Noble, Annie Besant and Madeline Slade, not only got actively involved with the Indian society but in their own ways contributed towards transforming the Indian society. They left an overwhelming impact on the Indian political fabric. The thesis aims to analyze the contribution of these four outstanding Western women and attempts to understand how Indian socio-political and cultural structure got influenced by and drew inspirations from them. This work also attempts to add to the process of evolution of understanding the East by the West. -
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PERCEPTION OF INDIA BY FOREIGNERS THROUGH SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
The dissertation titled Perception of India by Foreigners through Slumdog Millionaire speaks about the effectiveness of mass media in the recent times. Since times mass media has been playing a critical role in the peoples lifestyle with regard to understanding of various situations and also in decision making process. Any mass medium be it newspaper, radio,television, films etc has become a part of peoples life making them depending upon these mass media for their decision making process. Films, in particular, which caters to a large number of audiences crossing borders play a significant role in building ones perception on a culture, religion, nation, people and so on. While written reviews available online in scholarly and film journals, newspapers and the IMDB, for instance, form the backdrop to ideas in this study, the primary method of data collection is to do qualitative research through interviews of foreigners and Indians. Also, included are the qualitative questionnaires which would be administered online and off line to 100 foreigners and Indians. The problems lie in the perception of a problem by people of different culture having grown up in a varied environment. The aim of the research is to bring out the causes of such understanding towards the problem.The movie Slumdog Millionaire has been a mouth-piece of India in showcasing Indias poverty and lives of poor people. Here the Indians would have a different take on this problem with respect to foreigners who have, if not same, a contrast understanding of problem. The study helps in establishing a link between mass medium and people who would watch the film with their culture behind them. It also talks about the ethics involved in portraying a foreign nation by an alien person who is not from the same environment. -
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CONTRARIAN AND MOMENTUM STRATEGIES IN THE INDIAN STOCK FUTURES MARKET: A STUDY ON BANKING SECTOR
This thesis tries to investigate the contrarian and momentum strategy can help the investors to lay down the major guidelines for undertaking any derivative transaction. Contrarian strategies are based on the reversal pattern in stock returns and imply buying past losers and selling past winners. On the contrary, Momentum strategies are based on the continuation pattern in stock returns and imply buying past winners and selling past losers. For the purpose of analysis, the stock returns for the Indian stock futures market segment for Indian banking sector for the period from July 1, 2005 to June 30 2011 by using the Fama and French multifactor model. The Fama-French model involves the use of three factors for explaining common stock returns: the market factor proposed by the CAPM, and factors relating to size and value. The company used in this research consists of 16 Banks which were ranked in an ascending order based on their average returns. The ranked securities are then used to form five equal portfolios. While portfolio P1 contains the bottom 20 per cent securities and is called "losers' portfolio," portfolio P5 contains the top 20 per cent securities and is termed as "winners' portfolio." The findings suggests that the stock-return behavior in banking sector for short-term momentum profits and long term contrarian profits exist in this case. Further, the contrarian trading strategy based on long term returns provides moderately positive payoffs and short-term returns show a continuation pattern and the investment strategy based on momentum effect provides significantly high returns. Finally, the study generally supportive of the Fama-French model applied to Indian futures stock market related to banking sector. Keywords: Contrarian, Momentum, Stock Returns, CAPM, Fama-French Model JEL Classification: C12, C22, E43, G11 -
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Inverse domination number of graphs /
Konigsberg (55.2 o North latitude and 22 o East longitude) was a city in Russia situated on the Pregel River,which served as the residence of the dukes of Prussia in the 16th century. Today,the city named Kaliningrad,is in Lithuania which recently separated from U.S.S.R.It serves as a major industrial and commercial centre of western Russia.The river Pregel flowed through the town,dividing it into four regions,as in the following picture.In the eighteenth century, seven bridges connected the four regions.The problem was to start from anyone of the land areas,walk across each bridge exactly once and return to the starting point.This problem was first solved in 1736 by the prolific Swiss Mathematician Leonhard Euler, who, as a consequence of his solution invented the branch of Mathematics now known as Graph Theory. -
EMOTICONS AND THE NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION: WITH REFERENCE TO FACEBOOK
In the recent years, the use of emoticons in text-based and computer-mediated communications has gained a lot of popularity. Though emoticons (a combination of punctuation marks and letters) first began as a representation of facial expression, they have over the years been transformed to now include graphical representations of a variety of items (both static and animated). The usage of emoticons and their interpretation differ from one person to another, depending on factors such as gender, age and culture. Facebook is a platform where people across the globe communicate, share opinions and connect with each other. The researcher, thus, seeks to understand whether emoticons have the ability to infuse the text-based computer-mediated- communications on Facebook with the richness and authenticity of face-to-face interactions, and to arrive at an understanding of how these different groups use and interpret emoticons. A sample size of 139 was selected using the snowball sampling technique. The methods of primary data collection included surveys in the form of questionnaires that were distributed online. A quantitative analysis of the collected data was conducted using SPSS. The study revealed that age, gender and location do have a bearing on the patterns of usage and interpretation of emoticons. It also showed that emoticons cannot provide the text-based computer-mediated- communications on Facebook with the richness and authenticity of face-to-face interactions. -
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A study on emotional intelligence and work life balance of employees in the information technology industry in Bangalore, India /
Emotional Intelligence is a set of qualities and competencies that captures a broad collection of individual skills and dispositions, usually referred to as soft skills or inter and intra-personal skills, that are outside the traditional areas of specific knowledge, general intelligence, and technical or professional skills. Emotions are an intrinsic part of our biological makeup, and every morning they march into the office with us and influence our behavior. -
Changing trends in the Promotional Strategies of Indian Television Soap Operas
The television has been a primary source of entertainment for masses across the globe. In India itself, people within households are often glued to their television sets in order to be informed or entertained. Drama is a source of life for most people and hence the end up tuning into a variety of daily soap makes that area available to them. Television soap operas have grown tremendously over the past decades and different methods have been adopted and developed to promote these soap operas. The research aims to see how promotions of television soap operas in India have changed between 2008 and 2012 with an analysis of the different kind of strategies adopted by television networks to promote and advertise their different shows. -
Impact of Traditional Practices on Domestic Violence among the Women of the East Khasi Hills
Khasi hills is situated in the northern part of India. Many issues of domestic issues are reported in this area. The reasons, intensity or frequency of domestic violence varies according to the cultural background and socio-economic class. In many societies, women face a lot of issues associated with the culture and traditional practices of that community. According to certain traditional practices followed in societies, women are expected to conduct herself according to what has been taught and practice for generations. Violations of those norms lead to severe consequences. Domestic violence is also an outcome of such norms followed in the society. Therefore, the present study focuses on understanding the traditional practices followed in the Khasi community and its effect on domestic violence. For the study, the researcher selected 150 women from East Khasi Hills Districts. A descriptive research design is used for the study. Convenient sampling method was used along with a close-ended questionnaire for gathering information. Descriptive statistics, Man-Whitney test, Chi-Square, Spearman Correlation were used for analysis of the different traditional practices and type of domestic violence. The research finding indicates that women in the Khasi hills faced physical and psychological violence, in which psychological violence is found to be more prominent. Inheritance is one of the factors that have a significant impact on domestic violence. The traditional practices followed by the Khasi community is a reason for women being abused by their spouse. Effective intervention programme and Capacity Building for different Stakeholders on the different causes and preventive measures on incidence of domestic violence can bring about positive change in matters related to domestic violence towards women in the state of Meghalaya. -
Media Ethics in Times of Demonetization: Framing Debates in English News Channels
Objectivity has been a traditional ideal for journalism. Journalists are trained to be objective; they do not frame stories by themselves????or do they? Faced with the pressure of deadlines, strained resources and the perception that audience prefer reportorial style, journalists resort to amusement or conflict based reporting positioning one side against the other and often aggravating facts and issues. The public today expresses disappointment with current media practices. Media watchers argue that instead of improving the quality of programming, competition has resulted in a race to the bottom, where news channels have conveniently forgotten basic ethical norms. This study is an attempt at re-visioning media ethics. It is believed that ethical journalism is never more important than in the time of crises. Taking India???s recent economic crisis, demonetization, this research aims to answer what makes it difficult for journalists to adhere to ethics especially during crises? With emphasis on situation faced by reporters, pressure imposed on them by various sources and ethical dilemma, this study provides answers to the questions posed on the work of journalists. Content analysis of demonetization debates broadcasted on two popular English news channels and interview responses of experienced journalists of Indian news media goes to explain how demonetization was represented by Indian news channels and to what extent journalistic ethics was reflected in their content.