Educational Loans from Scheduled Commercial Banks: A Critical Assessment

India has large number of students who are aiming for higher education and are seeking financial assistance in the form of educational loans from banks. It has been found in the study that, educational loans are available to deserving / meritorious students at affordable interest rates for pursuing higher studies in India and abroad for various courses. Even though the number of education loan accounts has increased; the year-on-year growth rate had been showing a declining trend both in number of accounts as well as in the amount. Keywords: Educational Loans-interest rates-growth in loan accounts

AP Microfinance Crisis & Its Impact on Microfinance Sector

Microfinance is an economic development tool whose primary objective is to assist the poor to work their way out of poverty.  Microfinance loans are usually small, unsecured, given to low-income groups, mainly for income-generating activities and sometimes for consumption, housing and other purposes. The microfinance sector went through a difficult and challenging period during Andhra Pradesh Microfinance crisis. What started as a concern about the reported suicides by few harassed MFI borrowers soon grew into a major crisis that had threatened the entire microfinance sector. This could be mainly due to absence of regulatory body for microfinance sector and failure of Bank Linkage Programs. The RBI, accepted the recommendations of the Malegam Committee and brought NBFC-MFI under a separate regulatory framework, through NBFC-MFI Directions. Key words: Microfinance; crisis; regulatory body; NBFC; Malegam Committee

The theory of experience in religious realism with special reference to moral and religious experience

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive. Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universityhttps://archive.org/details/thetheoryofexper00aqu

EMRI as A Sustainable Model

This paper deals with studying financial aspects of a non-profit organization like Emergency Response Services (EMS) in India, GVK-EMRI in particular. GVK-EMRI runs the 108 ambulance service across the country. A detailed analysis has been done on sources of revenue and application of the same. Also, the areas of operational costs have been researched in order to suggest measures to reduce these costs. The overall aim of the study is to suggest alternative sources of revenue for such non-profit organizations such that they become financially sustainable business models.  The findings of the study are that such organizations cannot sustain without heavy government-fund infusion. The only way to make it financially sustainable is to increase the proportion of revenue from alternative sources. It has been found that salaries of the employees occupies lion's share of expenditure. Keywords: Financial Sustainability; non-profit organization; alternative sources; operational costs

Direct current stimulation and epilepsy in developing countries: Opportunity and challenges

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is one type of neuromodulation, which is an emerging technology that holds promise for the future studies on therapeutic and diagnosis applications in treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Epilepsy is one of the commonest neurological disorders, caused by an enhanced cortical excitability favoring paroxysmal neuronal discharge. Cathodaldirect current stimulation (ctDCS) is a low-cost noninvasive portable neuro-stimulatory technique which can transiently decrease cortical excitability in humans. This was invasively demonstrated to reduce epileptiform discharges in animals

Nanoscale structure and single molecule diffusion in smart polymeric systems.

Soft nanotechnology requires the development and understanding of smart polymeric systems that respond to small changes in the surrounding environment. This thesis reports on the structure and dynamics in poly(methacn"lic acid) (PMAA) hydrogels and hyperbranched poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (HB-PNIPAM) in response to physical and chemical stimuli. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) has been utilized to study the diffusion of single dextran molecules labelled with fluorescein isothiocyanate within a PMAA hydrogel. Diffusion in pure water shows a temperature dependence described by Zimm dynamics, whereas the diffusion coefficient decreases with temperature in the hydrogel for which a model has been developed. Diffusion in PMAA hydrogel has revealed the mesh size dependence on temperature. The effect of pH and salt on the diffusion in PMAA hydrogel has also been considered. Introducing magnetic nanoparticles to hydrogels forms ferrogels the mesh of which is controlled by applied magnetic fields. The swelling, diffusion and release in PMAA ferro gel has been found to follow the same scaling theory developed in this work. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) has revealed the structural behaviour of HB-PNIPAM as a function of temperature compared to its linear counterpart. These experiments have shown that water is a good solvent for HB-PNIPAM at low temperatures, while increasing the temperature leads to a gradual collapse of these polymers until they form spherical particles with sharp boundaries of the order of 24-40 nm in diameter, depending on the branching degree. This indicates that HB-PNIPAM shows no entanglements either as a function of temperature or branching degree. In contrast, linear PNIPAM showed a network-like behaviour above its collapsing temperature. Neutron spin echo experiments on HB-PNIPAM are described well by the Rouse model for unentangled chains and the self-diffusion of HB-PNIPAl\I by FCS follows Zimm behaviour, which is in agreement with SANS results. These studies have given a better understanding of the nanostructure and dynamics in the investigated polymeric systems, showing their usefulness as delivery systems for many biological and medical applications

The common dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus linnaeus, 1758 (Perciformes, Coryphaenidae) in the marine waters of Iraq

First record of the common dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus from the Iraqi marine waters is reported in the present study. One adult specimen (762 mm total length) was caught from the waters surrounding the Khor Abdullah within the Iraqi marine territory. It is a new ichthyofaunal record for the area

Analysis of Oil and Gas Industry in Asia with Reference to Investment and Expansion Strategies of Asian National Oil Companies (ANOC’s)

Demand for crude oil and natural gas in the Asian region has increased over the past few years at a rate of 1.3% during 2000-2012 and the demand for natural gas is likely to increase at an average annual growth rate of 6.8% during 2009-2020. Scarcity of resources forced many Asian National Oil Companies (ANOCs) to explore the opportunities in various corners of the world looking for prospective lands and partnerships which led them to aggressively invest in global acquisition of oil and gas assets. This paper deals with the strategies adopted by the ANOCs to secure their energy needs and conducts an in-depth analysis of Asian Oil and Gas industry. It also analyses the investments, mergers & acquisitions and growth strategies of major ANOCs. Results of the study show that increasing domestic needs have driven ANOCs’ decision to expand overseas. It can be concluded that acquiring of assets internationally will play a prominent role in ANOCs’ future operations. Key words: Crude oil, Natural gas, Energy needs, Mergers, Acquisitions