Livelihood Diversification and Women Empowerment Through Self-Help Micro Credit Programme: Evidence from Jammu and Kashmir.

In the paper an attempt has been made to analyze the process of livelihood diversification and women empowerment through women self-help groups (WSHGs) and micro credit and its impact under Integrated Watershed Development Project (IWDP), Hills-II, Jammu and Kashmir; to find out difficulties in operationalizing micro income generating activities (MIGAs) through WSHGs and micro credit; and to suggest policy recommendations to make the programme of micro enterprise development through WSHGs and micro credit a success. The study reveals that through creation of WSHGs, 250 beneficiaries have been trained, out of which 50 percent have taken up MIGAs on sustainable basis and started earning up to Rs. 500 per month in Ramnagar Sub-watershed. The scheme of inter-loaning has also been introduced and members of WSHGs gets loan up to Rs. 5000. Through opening of saving accounts in nationalized banks, monthly savings of WSHGs have increased up to Rs. 1000. All these have resulted in increased income and improved livelihoods of the beneficiaries. New WSHGs should be formed through which new high potential MIGAs needs to be promoted. The system of revolving fund/mutual fund groups should also be promoted. The extent of beneficiaries’ willingness to contribute towards the cost of any MIGA is a ‘litmus test’ of their interest and commitment. Efforts should be made to evolve cost-sharing mechanism to ensure sustainability. The members of the WSHGs should be imparted training related to technical, financial, and marketing aspects, for which reputed local NGOs should be roped in. Exposure visits and training programmes should also be organized on regular interval to give WSHGs the opportunities to learn and express themselves in public and to improve their self-confidence.Livelihood Diversification, Women Empowerment, Self-Help Groups, Micro Credit

List decoding group homomorphisms between supersolvable groups

We show that the set of homomorphisms between two supersolvable groups can be locally list decoded up to the minimum distance of the code, extending the results of Dinur et al who studied the case where the groups are abelian. Moreover, when specialized to the abelian case, our proof is more streamlined and gives a better constant in the exponent of the list size. The constant is improved from about 3.5 million to 105.Comment: 11 page

Factors influencing branchless banking for microfinance in Sudan: Theoretical perspectives and future directions

In Sudan more than 40% live below the poverty line and getting basic financial service poses a challenge to financial institutions. Most of these unserved populations live in far-flung areas that make it difficult for microfinance institutions to reach them. But the enormous growth of mobile technology industry has created new opportunity to expand financial services to this unserved population. Branchless banking is one of the latest technologies that have been employed in different developing countries to expand financial services to the unbanked poor. Despite the potential benefits and relevance of Branchless banking to Sudan, there are still very few studies on Branchless banking in Sudan. To address this gap in the literature, this study aims to investigate the factors that are essential to the development of branchless banking in Sudan using mobile technology. This is a research-in-progress paper, the critical review of the literature so far revealed that there are essential factors for the success of branchless banking in Sudan e.g. the identification of the industry key players and their roles, the enabling regulatory environment, the infrastructure readiness and Sudanese cultural values. The paper will provide regulators and policy makers in Sudan a way forward to expedite the development of suitable Branchless banking for microfinance in Sudan

Stability analysis of Lower Dimensional Gravastars in noncommutative geometry

The Ba\~{n}ados, Teitelboim and Zanelli \cite{BTZ1992}, black hole solution is revamped from the Einstein field equations in (2 + 1)-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime, in a context of noncommutative geometry \cite{Rahaman(2013)}. In this article, we explore the exact gravastar solutions in three-dimension anti-de Sitter space given in the same geometry. As a first step we derive BTZ solution assuming the source of energy density as point-like structures in favor of smeared objects, where the particle mass M, is diffused throughout a region of linear size $\sqrt{\alpha}$ and is described by a Gaussian function of finite width rather than a Dirac delta function. We matched our interior solution to an exterior BTZ spacetime at a junction interface situated outside the event horizon. Furthermore, stability analysis is carried out for the dynamic case for the specific case when $\chi < 0. 214$ under radial perturbations about static equilibrium solutions. To give theoretical support we also trying to explore their physical properties and characteristics.Comment: 3 figure

Delays and the Capacity of Continuous-time Channels

Any physical channel of communication offers two potential reasons why its capacity (the number of bits it can transmit in a unit of time) might be unbounded: (1) Infinitely many choices of signal strength at any given instant of time, and (2) Infinitely many instances of time at which signals may be sent. However channel noise cancels out the potential unboundedness of the first aspect, leaving typical channels with only a finite capacity per instant of time. The latter source of infinity seems less studied. A potential source of unreliability that might restrict the capacity also from the second aspect is delay: Signals transmitted by the sender at a given point of time may not be received with a predictable delay at the receiving end. Here we examine this source of uncertainty by considering a simple discrete model of delay errors. In our model the communicating parties get to subdivide time as microscopically finely as they wish, but still have to cope with communication delays that are macroscopic and variable. The continuous process becomes the limit of our process as the time subdivision becomes infinitesimal. We taxonomize this class of communication channels based on whether the delays and noise are stochastic or adversarial; and based on how much information each aspect has about the other when introducing its errors. We analyze the limits of such channels and reach somewhat surprising conclusions: The capacity of a physical channel is finitely bounded only if at least one of the two sources of error (signal noise or delay noise) is adversarial. In particular the capacity is finitely bounded only if the delay is adversarial, or the noise is adversarial and acts with knowledge of the stochastic delay. If both error sources are stochastic, or if the noise is adversarial and independent of the stochastic delay, then the capacity of the associated physical channel is infinite