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PUBLIC DEBT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN INDIA
With the intention of stabilizing economy and to stimulate economic growth rate the modern day governments are presenting un balanced government budgets. This is increasing the growth of public debt. This deficit can be bridged by increasing the existing rates in taxes, imposing new taxes, and borrowing from public. The objectives of this study are 1) Analyzing the trends of public debt in India. 2) Analyzing the components of internal debt of India. 3) To find the threshold point of public debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio in India. 4) To investigate the connection among public debt and economic growth rate in India. Time period is 1981-2011-2012 and study used statistical tools and econometric techniques like percentage, R square, Adjusted R square, linear regression, and unit root test. Results show that there is an increasing trends in public debt of India. Regression result showed that 60 percent is the threshold point of public debt to GDP ratio and unit root test cleared that no need to check connection among public debt and gross domestic product. -
The Experience of Transition From Being A Breast Cancer Patient to Survivor: Treatment Experience of Naturopathy/ Yoga
Women's experience of breast cancer and conventional treatment is challenging and demanding. The period after completion of first line of treatment for the removal of cancer, is known to be stressful. Women have to rebuild their life by accepting their illness and the limitations it brings on. They suffer from a wide range of psycho social issues such as low self esteem, body image concerns, difficulties in role functionality, added to which they must also deal with residual symptoms and a compromised state of health after undergoing invasive treatments such as surgery/ chemotherapy. The treatment plan does not adequately address these concerns which are critical for adjustment to life after treatment. Many women are increasingly looking for alternative treatments for support, which reflects their unmet needs. Naturopathy functions in a holistic domain that aims to help patients move towards a better state of health and treats every individual's experience as unique. Hence the present study aimed to understand the process of transition from being a patient to becoming a survivor, focussing on the treatment experience of Naturopathy. Six women participated in semi structured in-depth interviews and provided details about their life. Based on the phenomenological approach, data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Themes that emerged have been organised into Life before diagnosis, Living with cancer and Surviving breast cancer, in order to understand the meaning participants' attached to their whole experience. Participants of the study found the treatment experience of Naturopathy to be helpful in enabling their transition towards becoming a survivor and regaining a sense of normalcy in their life. They associated positive feelings/ emotions during the process of therapy, and felt empowered through a greater sense of awareness and control over their body/mind Key words: Naturopathy, Breast cancer, Treatment experience, Cancer Survivorship -
FACTORS EFFECTING EMPLOYMENT CHOICE AND WILLINGNESS TO STAY IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY
Employer Brand refers to what people currently associate with an organization, employer branding can been described as the sum of a companys efforts to communicate to existing and prospective staff what makes it a desirable place to work, and the active management of a companys image as seen through the eyes of its associates and potential hires. This study is an attempt to continue afresh with new perspective to the field of human resource and behavioural sciences with special reference to employer branding: factors effecting employment choice and willingness to stay in information technology industry. The review on the related literature in the area of Employer branding and their willingness to stay or quit studied in this research has provided the researcher an insight into many factors. It also provides directions in designing the present study. Having reviewed several studies and having identified the gap, the investigator felt an imperative need to undertake the present investigation. The sample consisted of 276 IT employees from 11 employers of Bangalore city listed by NASSCOM. The sample consisted of both male and female IT employees. Judgemental sampling technique was adopted to select the number of respondents across the three types of management levels. The Major findings of the study were: 1. The five major media adopted to choose to work with the present employer were personal contacts followed by friends at the organization, job portals, company website and campus recruitment. Whereas medias like head-hunters, advertisements, internship, articles in media or product information had less interference in media adoption process. 2. It was found that challenging tasks, good reference for future career, international career opportunity, financial benefits, and work life balance were the top five factors that motivated employees to stay in the organization. Whereas wages / salary,products / services, retirement insurance, vehicle loan / discount facility, support staff for domestic help where least in motivating employees to stay. 3. It was found that compensation and benefits was the highest factor triggering an employees decision to quit followed by rewards and recognition, training programs, corporate culture and too challenging tasks. Other factors like recruitment and induction processes, reputation of the organization, leave and vacation policy, vehicle loan / discount facility and corporate social responsibility did not influence employees decision to quit. 4. It was found that compensation was the highest factor on why employees leave the organization.This was followed by reference for rewards,training programs,corporate culture, and challenging tasks. 5. Employees perception of trust too played a vital role in his decision process to stay or quit. It was found that dimensions like willingness to listen; trust, reliability, accountability, fairness, commitment and integrity played a vital role in influencing the trust process in an employee towards the organisation. Implications : HR managers need to have a good theory or model of how employer branding works in their own organisations. What works in one organisation or one industry sector may be quite different from what works in another. This indicates that there is some hard evidence and useful insights to be learned from emerging research in employer branding and its close relative, talent management. HR managers would be advised to look at this evidence-based work before leaping. Conclusion: The findings and outcome of this research will be beneficial to the IT organisations in India, which is a flourishing industry and contributes significantly to the GDP of the country and the talent pool of the world. The study will bring in sharp focus on the major challenges encountered in these areas and the solutions that will aid IT organisations to deal more significantly in increasing their organisational efficiency. Key words: employer branding, willingness to stay, perception of trust -
SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF HIGHLY HYPNOTIZABLE INDIVIDUALS DURING HYPNOSIS SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF HIGHLY HYPNOTIZABLE INDIVIDUALS DURING HYPNOSIS
The aim of the present study was to examine the subjective experience of highly hypnotizable individuals during hypnosis. The study conducted also examined the structure and pattern of subjective experience among highly hypnotizable individuals. Further investigations were carried out regarding the dimensions of experience which are common and unique to highly hypnotizable individuals. The sample consisted of 10 post graduate college students. Among the 50 participants who volunteered for phase I of the study, 10 highly hypnotizable individuals were selected for phase II. The tools used in phase I of the study were General Health Questionnaire - 12 (GHQ-12), and Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility- Form A (HGSHS: A). The Phenomenology Consciousness Inventory- Hypnotic Assessment Procedure (PCI-HAP) was used to examine the subjective experience of highly hypnotizable individuals in phase II of the study. Assessment was carried out in group sessions for phase I and individual sessions for phase II were conducted in the college premises. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage, to analyze the personal data of respondents and dimensions of subjective experience. Profile analysis was done using PCI-HAP interpretative manual. Collective analysis of profiles was executed through scaled phenomenological intensity profiles. Thematic analysis was carried out for the subjective responses given by the respondents that described their experience of the vacation (hypnotic dream imagery), trying to open their eyes (ideomotor challenge), two minute quiet period (PCI imagery), feelings after hypnosis, negative effects during or after hypnosis, how hypnotized they feel they became (depth experience). The results show that highly hypnotizable individuals experience distinct patterns of phenomenological experience during hypnosis. They differed in their trance typology profile, suggesting the existence of various subtypes among this population. Half of them were visualizers experiencing high intensity of vivid imagery, self awareness and intact memory. Highly experienced dimension by the group was absorption, highlighting as an important correlate of hypnotizability. The least experienced dimension was volitional control, suggesting less loss of phenomenological control during the PCI-HAP. Implications of the study are discussed. Keywords: Hypnotizability, Hypnotic susceptibility, Subjective experience, Hypnotic response, Phenomenology Consciousness Inventory (PCI). -
Transition and Negotiation of Gender-Role Identity: The Experience of the Indian Air Force Women Piilots
The masculine culture of military and the feminine attributes of women officers stand in total contrast to each other. The conundrum at the heart if this research is to analyse the experience of the Indian Air force women pilots in terms of transition of the gender-role identity and further how they negotiate their identity as a woman while performing highly masculine military role. Military provides an interesting ground to study gender identity and possibility for cultural change because it categorically rejects prevailing models of femininity.12 Indian Air Force pilots (serving and retired) were interviewed utilizing in-depth interview technique. Findings indicated transition of gender role identity as these women begin to give a new meaning to their identity. While these women move away from the traditional femininity, they do not cease to recognize and explore their feminine side when needed. Indeed the Indian Air Force women pilots exemplify and redefine the culturally recognized definition of femininity. They craft a place where they appear to be enjoying the privileges of both the worlds and rise above the gender debate or biases. Key words: Gender-role identity, femininity, transition, negotiation. -
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MAGAZINE COVER: AN ARTISTIC EXPRESSION AND A METHOD TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE READERS
The dissertation aims at going deeper than what meets the eyes, in terms of design and creativity with the help of semiotic analysis. The researcher conducted semiotic analysis of eight issues of Bloomberg Businessweek and Wired magazine??s cover pages, in an attempt to decode and deconstruct the nuances of the cover page. Stylistically all the cover pages considered for the semiotic analysis are covers that have several connotations and denotations. These aspects are generally neglected by the readers and there has been a constant need to decipher the underlying meaning. A lot of creative thought that goes into the creation of these cover pages as it involves a combined effort of the editorial and the design team with best of creative minds coming together. Here the attempt by the researcher is too look into that aspect of the cover which goes beyond the obvious. -
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SOCIAL MEDIA AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION.THE NEW AGE MANTRA?
The topic Social Media and Crisis communication ?? The new age mantra? is indeed one where immense amount of research is possible. Simply because social media today has become one of the most rapidly growing means of communication. The researcher through this research aims to find out if Public relations professionals use this medium extensively while communicating crisis. The theory used behind this research is ??uses and gratification theory??. The research begins with the theoretical aspect of social media and crisis communication. The researcher has taken examples of a few ground breaking crisis that have taken place in the consumer world and cited their examples where in prominent use of social media has made people aware of the crisis and it is the same social media that has eventually regained people??s faith back into the brand. By the end of the research conducted with the help of the questionnaire that was administered to the target audience, the researcher aims to arrive at the conclusion, whether social media indeed is the new age mantra for crisis communication or not.Through this study the researcher aims to study if social media has become the new age mantra for crisis communication. -
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Effective Testing: A case study approach for improving test efficiency
The study presented in this thesis investigates the methods for improving the software test efficiency. Test efficiency measures the cost-effectiveness of a test organisation and it is measured by dividing the number of defects found in a test by the effort needed to perform the test. A review of the literature suggests that software test efficiency improvement depends on direct and indirect success factors like test process, test management, test tools, test object delimitation, test case determination, test infrastructure, configuration management, release management etc. This thesis was a case study approach for improving the test efficiency of an existing test setup in a database environment. Most of the thesis work followed an action based research approach by giving importance to the test setup. Work started with an analysis of the initial test environment, identified the issues and improvement areas in existing test setup and given an implementation proposal for the identified problems. Based on the proposal, team implemented the solutions, which lead to a test environment containing number of actions like automation using standard framework, risk based testing, parallel execution, modularization, avoiding code redundancy and proper test management. The results of the case study suggest that the software products that has multiple releases should seriously consider the test improvement factors like regression environment, risk based testing, light weight test automation etc., in the initial stages of the testing. This will lead to cost savings, quality, flexibility and higher productivity. The investigation further identifies the issues in test management and introduced new method called test point method for proper test execution tracking. Based on the implementation results and their discussions, this study presents a new approach and practical guidelines for improving test efficiency of a software test project. IBM has recognised this case study by giving eminence and excellence award for saving one person year of testing effort in their indexing tool test environment. -
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Parental Attention of Full-time Dual Earning Couples and Its Impact on Children
As dual-earner families became the normative household type over the 21st century, the question of how families cope with and negotiate new work and family role responsibilities became the topic of much research and scholarly debate. Both parents working are inevitable in the current scenario. The purpose of this study is to understand the magnitude and quality of the parental attention of full-time dual earning couples and its relation to different chosen variables such as Recreation, Health, Socialization and Self-esteem, Moral development and Academic performance of their children. Data was collected from 50 respondents of full-time dual earning couples from various professionals in urban Bangalore region by administering a self-designed structured questionnaire. It has been found that most of the parents spent their valuable time with their children as they understood that would enhance physical, behavioural, personal and academic development of the children. The null findings in the present study indicate that the life style of full-time dual earning couples does not affect the normal development of their children, rather children are accustomed to parent work timings and are able to adapt to the changes in their parents work and responsibility. -
MEDIA MOTIVATION BEHIND WATCHING POPULAR BOOK BASED MOVIES
This dissertation explores the one medium that the youth choose to get influenced by when it comes to watching popular fantasy book based movies. It is based on the assumption that the influencers may be many but ultimately the youth rely on one main medium to make their movie watching decision. The books which the movies are based on, advertising media and user generated word of mouth communication were considered as strong individual influencers. The researcher first aimed at finding out which medium motivated youngsters to watch the first fantasy book based movie of the series and consequently whether the same medium influenced the youngsters to watch the remaining movies in the series. The researcher went on further, to find out which advertising medium most motivated youngsters to watch the movie series irrespective of whether advertising proved to be the strongest influencer or not. The researcher chose the Harry Potter book based movie series, the Twilight book based movie series and the Lord of the Rings book based movie series and restricted the target audience to the age group of 18-25 years. 90 respondents were allotted questionnaires out of which 30 respondents each belonged to the Harry Potter, Twilight and Lord of the Rings category. They were further equally divided on the basis of gender to negate bias. The major conclusion was that user generated word of mouth communication proved to be the strongest influencer when it came to watching the chosen popular fantasy book based movies and brought about the importance of TV ads as the ones with the most potential when it came to influencing those respondents in the advertising category. However the researcher cautions the readers that these findings may be applicable to other popular fantasy book based movies only if they fall in the same category as the ones chosen for this research. -
A Study of retail service quality expectation of electronic retail stores with reference to Bangalore shoppers
The annual growth rate of Retail sector in India is 46.64 percent. Over the past few years, the Retail sales in India are covering around 30 ?? 35 percent of GDP compared to around 20 percent in US. In the last few years immense growth by this sector was witnessed, the key factors were changing consumer profile and demographics, increase in number of international brand in Indian market, economic implications of the Government increasing urbanization, credit availability, improvement in the infrastructure, increasing investment in technology and real estate building world class environment for consumers. The consumer durables market can be divided into consumer electronics comprising of TV sets, audio systems, VCD players and others; and appliances like washing machine ,microwave ovens, air conditioners. The existing sector stands at an estimated US $ 4.5 Billion with organized retailing being at 5 percent. Due to the growth of this sector and increased demand for the durables that is electronics the need was felt to know what are the customer expectations towards the electronic retail store so that the customers expectation gets fulfilled and this can improve the economic development as a whole. The study attempts to find the shoppers expectation towards retail service quality of electronic retail store in Bangalore. -
ROLE OF MEDIA IN PROPAGATING WELFARE SCHEMES
Media has always been pro-active about disseminating information. But it is no longer limiting itself to information. The concept of infotainment and sensationalism has taken over. Whether it is news channels or entertainment channels, all believe in the concept of garnering number one slots. The concept of ??media has evolved over a period of time. Unlike before, it is not limited to newspapers, radio and pamphlets. Recently, an upcoming Kannada singer committed suicide as he was not allowed to participate in one of the reality shows. This is a clear example to show the importance and the kind of recognition one gives to this medium. This research paper tries to understand the role of media in propagating welfare schemes. Various committees are formed across the country to provide a fair chance for the common man to access better facilities and fruits of development. If information about the same development or welfare schemes is not disseminated widely, how can one try to bring better standards of living? Running behind scams or 24 hours news coverage does not guarantee high quality news. The media is no longer a mediator between the government and public, but more of a commercial entity. Freedom to design program content has meant that the private TV channels, especially 24x7 news channels, do not have any special interest in propagating information about social welfare schemes. Government-owned broadcast media entities, on the other hand, follow government guidelines on media content, with specialized content to meet social development objectives. However, government-owned broadcast media is far behind in terms of catching up with latest technology and following best practices, when compared to private channels. Bureaucracy, red-tapism and lack of agility have meant that the government-owned channels have lost out to the private channels in presentation and holding the attention of viewers. -
REPRESENTATION OF SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS ISSUES IN THE FILMS DIRECTED BY PRIYANANDANAN
The medium of film has been one of the most effective communication tools to the masses since its emergence. Film represents various kinds of issues and incidents in the society and acts as a reflection of reality to the people. One of the main issues which have been portrayed in many of the films is on social and religious issues which had affected the society in very diverse ways. Films works as a channel to show the audience how these issues occur and how it can be resolved. This study aims to find how Priyanandanan has represented these kinds of issues through his films to his audience using qualitative research methodology. -
Study of suction and injection combination on the onset of double-diffusive convection in a micropolar fluid
The effect of suction and injection combination (SIC) on the onset of double-diffusive convection in a micropolar fluid is studied us- ing linear stability theory. The eigenvalue is obtained for free-free, rigid-free, rigid-rigid velocity boundary combinations with isother- mal or adiabatic on the spin-vanishing boundaries numerically using Galerkin Technique. The influence of various micropolar fluid param- eters on the onset of convection has been analyzed. It is found that by adjusting SIC it is possible to control the double-diffusive convection in a micropolar fluid. It is also observed that the effect of Prandtl number on the stability of the system is dependent on the SIC being pro-gravity or anti-gravity. -
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PREFERENCES OF 24 HOURS NEWS CHANNEL VIEWERS IN KERALA
Keeping the demand of Infotainment programs, the media houses started producing news magazines, entertainment magazines and news programs for different channels. Within a short span of time news journalism became so popular in Kerala and now more and more media houses were planning to setup their news channels in the state. By several measures news channels has come to realize the potential for news broadcasting. Each network has dramatically expanded their news programming over the decades and TV news producers take great pains to make their stories visually appealing to present news instantaneously and to make viewers feel they are a part of the events shown. New computerized graphical techniques present technical and statistical data in compelling formats. Broadcast organizations routinely conduct researches to keep up to date on what audiences preferences about the news and continuous feedback also make television an ideal medium to satisfy the demands of the people. In addition to the presentation of more news in more technically advanced formats, there's an audience presumably better able to understand news. Thus the study will find out the characteristics and preferences of news viewing population in Kerala.