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To investigate the role of domestic and foreign economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in driving the corporate bond yields in emerging markets.

The study utilizes monthly data from January 2008 to June 2023 from the selected emerging economies. The data analysis is conducted using univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques. The study includes bond market liquidity and global volatility (VIX) as control variables.

Domestic EPU has a significant role in driving corporate bond yields in these markets. The study finds weak evidence to support the role of the USA EPU in influencing corporate bond yields in emerging economies. Domestic EPU holds more weight and influence than the EPU originating from the United States of America.

The findings provide useful insights to policymakers about the potential impact of policy uncertainty on corporate bond yields and enable them to make informed decisions regarding economic policies that maintains financial stability. Understanding the relationship between EPU and corporate bond yields enables investors to optimize their investment decisions in emerging market economies, opens the scope for further research on the interaction between EPU and volatility and other attributes of fixed income markets.

Focuses specifically on the emerging market economies in Asia, providing an in-depth analysis of the dynamics and challenges faced by these countries, Explores the influence of both domestic and the USA EPU on corporate bond yields in emerging markets, offering valuable insights into the transmission channels and impact of EPU from various sources.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the global and regional influences on the domestic term structure of nine Asian economies.

The dynamic Nelson Siegel model was used to extract the latent factors of a country’s yield curve movements in a state-space framework using the Kalman filter. The global and regional factors of the yield curve were extracted using the dynamic factor model. Further, the Bayesian inference of Gibbs sampling approach was used to identify the influence of global and regional factors on the domestic yield curve.

The results suggest that financial integration does not reduce the control of monetary authorities on the front end of the yield curve, and long-term interest rate is the potential transmission channel through which the contagion of the financial crisis spreads.

The results of this study would help the monetary authorities to understand the efficacy of the monetary policy transmission mechanism. It also offers the global investors diversification opportunities for investing in the Asian bond markets.

It is one of the earliest attempts to capture the global and regional yield curve movements and their impact on the emerging Asian economies yield curve. It contributes to literature by identifying the linkages in the long-term factor that is the potential channel through which crisis spreads.

This study aims to analyze the influence of firm characteristics in dividend payout in a concentrated ownership setting.

This study is probably the first to use the lasso technique for model selection and error prediction in the study of dividend payout in India. The lasso method comprises subsampling the available data set and performing reiterative regressions on those samples to generate the model with the best fit. This study incorporates four different ways of performing lasso treatment to get the best fit among them.

This study analyzes the influence of firm characteristics on dividend payout in the Indian context and asserts that firms with growth potential and earnings volatility do not hesitate to cut dividends. This study does not find evidence for signaling, agency cost and life cycle theories in a concentrated ownership setting. Earnings is the single most important factor to have a positive influence on dividend, while excessively leveraged firms are restrictive of dividend payout. Taxation has a prominent role in altering the way firms pay dividend.

The recent changes in buyback taxation offer another opportunity to test the reactive behavior of firms. Also, given the disregard for traditional motivations, further research needs to be done to determine if dividend adjustments (on the lower side) help enhance firm value or not.

This study may help investors view dividends in a proper perspective. Firms give importance to investments over dividends and thus investors need not dwell on dividend changes if firms fulfill their growth potential.

It lends perspective to investors about dividend changes and its importance.

The methodology used for analysis is absolutely original in the literature pertaining to dividend policy in the Indian context. The literature is abundant with theories advocating or opposing the eminence of dividend payout; however, this study takes a holistic view of all influential dividend determinants in literature to understand dividend payout.

This paper aims to examine the determinants of the dividend distribution policy in a banking setting.

Using a sample of 48 Islamic banks and 94 conventional banks from 15 Islamic countries over a period spanning from 2012 to 2019, we document the effect of board gender diversity, executive director profile and governance mechanisms on dividend payment decisions. We also analyze the moderating effect of Islamic banks on the relationship between gender diversity and dividend policy.

We find new evidence on the role of women directors in determining dividend distribution policy and confirm the risk aversion hypothesis, hence contributing to the ongoing debate on gender diversity literature. Our results show that the moderating role of Islamic banks is effective only for small banks.

Our findings have practical implications for shareholders, managers and financial analysts as they suggest rationalizing dividend distribution strategies.

Our study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on dividend policy, gender diversity and Islamic banks.

The study attempts to identify the linkages in the term structure of illiquidity and the impact of global and domestic factors on sovereign bonds in emerging Asia. The objective of the study ensues on defining the direction of illiquidity spillover across bonds of varying tenors.

This study explores the joint dynamics of contemporary liquidity risk premia and its time-varying effect on the term structure spectrum using the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) spillover framework.

A substantial relationship was found to exist between the liquidity of bonds with closer terms to maturity. The macroeconomic environment primarily impacts the liquidity of 10-year bonds, and they spiral down to the subsequent bond liquidity, exhibiting a rippling effect. The authors further show that the direction of liquidity shock transmission is from long- to medium- and thence to short-term bonds. Among the global factors, foreign investments and S & P 500 VIX significantly affect the liquidity of 10-year bonds.

The study has several implications for academicians, policymakers and domestic and global investment professionals. The drivers of liquidity risk and the transmission across the term structure help investors in designing efficient portfolio diversification strategies. The results are relevant for cross-border investors in the valuation of emerging Asian sovereign bonds while deciding on asset allocations and hedging strategies. The monetary regulators strive on a continuous basis to improve the liquidity in sovereign bond markets in order to ensure efficient funding of development activities. This study finds that short-term bonds are more liquid than long-term bonds. Their auction framework with higher series of short-term bond issues helps to provide the required liquidity in the markets.

The term structure of illiquidity is upward sloping, inferring a higher underlying liquidity risk of long-term bonds compared to short-term bonds. This finding suggests that a higher representation of short-term bonds in the auction framework helps to enhance the overall market liquidity.

This study offers insights into the debate on the shape of the term structure of illiquidity and the point of origination of liquidity shocks. Further, the direction of spillover across a wide spectrum of bonds is also demonstrated.

In India, there are various religions and cultures. Several festivals are celebrated through the year, and a variety of specific foods are prepared for each of the festivals. The aim was to study the extent of consumption of colours during festivals.

A household survey was carried out in the urban areas of Hyderabad among individuals in the age groups 1‐5 years, 6‐18 years and >18 years from three socio‐economic groups – high, middle, and low income – from government quarters. The respondents of the study were interviewed using a food frequency questionnaire to elicit information on the intake of colours during festivals. The festivals selected for the study were Sankranthi, Diwali, Holi and Christmas.

The consumption pattern of various foods among all the subjects of the study during the four festivals indicated that a majority of the subjects (44 per cent) consumed sweetmeats. The intake of tartrazine and sunset yellow was observed to be higher during festivals due to the extensive use of these colours in sweetmeats, savouries and beverages that are most commonly available during festivals. The present investigation showed that there has been a shift in the preferences for foods during festivals (i.e. mainly sweetmeats and the type of colours consumed).

As there was an excessive consumption of yellow colours like tartrazine and sunset yellow and lesser consumption of red colours like ponceau 4R and carmoisine, the Indian government needs to take into consideration such situations when setting maximum permissible limits.

In general, Indian Classical Music (ICM) is classified into two: Carnatic and Hindustani. Even though, both the music formats have a similar foundation, the way of presentation is varied in many manners. The fundamental components of ICM are raga and taala. Taala basically represents the rhythmic patterns or beats (Dandawate et al., 2015; Kirthika and Chattamvelli, 2012). Raga is determined from the flow of swaras (notes), which is denoted as the wider terminology. The raga is defined based on some vital factors such as swaras, aarohana-avarohna and typical phrases. Technically, the fundamental frequency is swara, which is definite through duration. Moreover, there are many other problems for automatic raga recognition model. Thus, in this work, raga is recognized without utilizing explicit note series information and necessary to adopt an efficient classification model.

This paper proposes an efficient raga identification system through which music of Carnatic genre can be effectively recognized. This paper also proposes an adaptive classifier based on NN in which the feature set is used for learning. The adaptive classifier exploits advanced metaheuristic-based learning algorithm to get the knowledge of the extracted feature set. Since the learning algorithm plays a crucial role in defining the precision of the raga recognition, this model prefers to use the GWO.

Through the performance analysis, it is witnessed that the accuracy of proposed model is 16.6% better than NN with LM, NN with GD and NN with FF respectively, 14.7% better than NN with PSO. Specificity measure of the proposed model is 19.6, 24.0, 13.5 and 17.5% superior to NN with LM, NN with GD, NN with FF and NN with PSO, respectively. NPV of the proposed model is 19.6, 24, 13.5 and 17.5% better than NN with LM, NN with GD, NN with FF and NN with PSO, respectively. Thus it has proven that the proposed model has provided the best result than other conventional classification methods.

This paper intends to propose an efficient raga identification system through which music of Carnatic genre can be effectively recognized. This paper also proposes an adaptive classifier based on NN.

Physicians who are primary care providers in rural communities form an essential stakeholder group in rural mobile health (mHealth) delivery. This study was exploratory in nature and was conducted in Udupi district of Karnataka, India. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of rural medical officers (MOs) (rural physicians) regarding the benefits and challenges of mobile phone use by community health workers (CHWs).

In-depth interviews were conducted among 15 MOs belonging to different primary health centers of the district. Only MOs with a minimum five years of experience were recruited in the study using purposive and snowball sampling. This was followed by thematic analysis of the data collected.

The perceptions of MOs regarding the CHWs' use of mobile phones were largely positive. However, they reported the existence of some challenges that limits the potential of its full use. The findings were categorized under four themes namely, benefits of mobile phone use to CHWs, benefits of mobile phone-equipped CHWs, current mobile phone use by CHWs and barriers to CHWs' mobile phone use. The significant barriers reported in the CHWs' mobile phone use were poor mobile network coverage, technical illiteracy, lack of consistent technical training and call and data expense of the CHWs. The participants recommend an increased number of mobile towers, frequent training in mobile phone use and basic English language for the CHWs as possible solutions to the barriers.

Studies examining the perceptions of doctors who are a primary stakeholder group in mHealth as well as in the public health system scenario are limited. To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to examine the perception of rural doctors regarding CHWs' mobile phone use for work in India.

This study aims to explore the “psychological contract of safety” (PCS), a key factor in the safety climate (SC), which relies on the behavioral safety actions of workers at construction sites. While numerous factors have been identified in various sectors across different countries, there is a consensus among researchers that there is a dearth of common assessment factors specifically for the Indian construction industry (ICI). Therefore, this study undertakes a systematic review of existing literature to identify the factors that determine PCS in construction and to ascertain the relative importance index (RII) of these variables and their interrelationships using structural equation modelling (SEM).

A structured survey was conducted among 420 professionals in the ICI to collect data. This data was then analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods to derive results.

The findings of the study indicate that PCS factors have a significant impact on the construction industry (CI). The inferential analysis ranks “Safety System” as the top factor with the highest RII value. The chi-square results highlight two key SC factors that enhance and regulate an organization’s safety performance. The SEM results reveal that SC factors contribute to the improvement of PCS and influence worker safety behavior.

The outcomes of this study will be beneficial for stakeholders aiming to improve safety at construction sites and enhance safety performance by fulfilling the mutual safety obligations of employers and employees and by improving safety norms, procedures and policy-making. This paper also provides a theoretical framework for scholars to reassess the results in various contexts.

Managing brands during crisis (in the context of terrorism) does not have much historical research and the studies that exist focus on communication. Terrorism is more frequent; not easily prevented; and rarely a top management priority for risk management. The purpose of this paper is to use exiting theory on brand components and architecture to prevent brand burn. Brand burn is defined as the accidental negative impact formed on a brand due to a crisis outside the control of an organization, which may not be perceived as directly related to the organization's product or management.

Crises are characterized by an overload of information. The exploratory study uses a case study methodology to get insights on how to manage a brand through a crisis. To validate findings, triangulation using independent reviewers, theory and secondary reports is used.

First, a conceptual framework to manage brand burn is presented. Second, from the practitioner's point of view, the paper provides a checklist that gives strategic tips for preparing for and managing brand crisis. The findings show that both brand components and brand architecture can be used to manage brands through crisis.

The findings contribute to theory by adding to the evolving literature on brand architecture, brand components and crisis management. Key challenges were organizing and prioritizing the vast amount of data from secondary sources, including social media sites; time was an issue as memories fade; and another limitation was getting official confirmation since perceptions play a key role.

This is the first study looking at a terrorist crisis from a brand management point of view. This paper contributes to theory by adding to the research in brand architecture and brand components and crisis management. Future studies can look at the model robustness in other crisis situations and the impact of managing social media.