Volume 10 | Issue 12 |

 Abstract

The financial services sector has undergone significant transformation due to globalization, deregulation, and technological advancement. One of the most notable developments is the integration of banking and insurance services, commonly referred to as bancassurance. This integration enables banks and insurance companies to offer combined financial products and services through shared distribution channels. The present study examines the concept of banking-insurance integration and analyzes its impact on the financial performance of financial institutions. The study highlights how integration enhances revenue generation, reduces operational costs, improves customer retention, and strengthens overall financial stability.

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 Keywords

Banking, Insurance, Bancassurance, Financial Performance, Integration, Financial Services

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Nearly half of India's population depends on rivers for drinking water, irrigation, industry, and other essential services. However, river water quality has deteriorated over the last two decades due to rapid urban expansion, industrial effluents, and agricultural pollution. This study examines the temporal and spatial variations in river water quality using key parameters such as Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), pH, nitrate, and heavy metals. A single Water Quality Index (WQI) was computed using the weighted arithmetic method to represent the overall river health. The results reveal both pollution and spatial heterogeneity across river basins. The Ganga and Godavari rivers generally exhibit good water quality with WQI values ranging from 70 to 85, whereas the Yamuna near Delhi shows poor water quality with WQI values between 35 and 55. Marginal improvements were observed at select monitoring stations. Pre-monsoon and post-winter seasons recorded higher pollutant concentrations, attributed to reduced dilution and increased organic loading during low-flow conditions. The findings emphasize the need for basin-specific management strategies and continuous data-driven decision-making. Open-access monitoring datasets can enhance public engagement in environmental governance. Integrating open data with WQI computation offers an effective framework for evaluating and improving river health across India.

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 Keywords

Water Quality Index (WQI); Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD); Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD); Nitrates; Heavy Metals; Spatial and Temporal Trends; River Basin; Ganga River; Yamuna River; Godavari River; Open Monitoring Data.

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Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in South Asia represents a complex, dynamic system of ecological understanding, resource management strategies, cultural values, and social norms developed by Indigenous communities over centuries. This paper explores the relevance of IK to sustainability in the South Asian context, focusing specifically on the Adivasi communities of Central India. Through an interdisciplinary review of literature up to 2022, the paper examines how Adivasi IK contributes to biodiversity conservation, agroecology, forest stewardship, water management, and climate change adaptation. It also analyzes socio-cultural dimensions of sustainability, including community governance, health knowledge, and intergenerational transmission of values. While IK carries immense potential for addressing contemporary ecological crises, its integration into national sustainability strategies is hindered by challenges including land dispossession, cultural erosion, marginalization, and the dominance of technocratic development paradigms. This paper argues that recognizing, protecting, and integrating IK--through rights-based approaches and participatory governance--can significantly strengthen environmental sustainability in India and the broader South Asian region.

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 Keywords

Indigenous Knowledge, sustainability, Adivasi, Central India, traditional ecological knowledge, agroecology, climate adaptation

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and The Open Definition

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Childhood anaemia, a widespread nutritional deficiency globally, profoundly affects lifelong health. Key consequences include weakened immunity, developmental problems, hindered learning capacity, and decreased workplace efficiency. However, early detection and preventative measures can foster a child's development into a healthy adult. The study aims to analyze key determinants of child anaemia through the exploration of NFHS-5 data, conducted by Govt. of India during 2019 to 2021. Two-level binary logistic regression analysis was performed, with children as first level and households as second level, to assess the significance of some socio-economic and demographic predictors, as well as the variation of the child level predictors across the households. The findings reveal that a significant proportion of children were anaemic, specifically 67% overall, with highest prevalence among those in the poorest demographic, lower age group and those with higher birth order. Though the cross-household variability was not significant, but the condition was predicted by a combination of factors, including household wealth, parents' educational background, and maternal anaemia.

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Risk factors, Child anaemia, India, NFHS, Multilevel analysis

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and The Open Definition

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Over the last number of years tourism is considered as an economic activity. Our ancestors depended on sea routes for travelling which was too time consuming. But due to advancement in technology, world has shrunk into a global village. Tourism provides recreation, relaxation and pleasure in this busy world which provides happiness in life. Indian tourism earns foreign exchange as it attracts lot of foreign travellers. The Kerala government has allocated huge amount of capital for expansion which includes high quality facilities for the tourists. The kottur Elephant Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre located in Thiruvananthapuram is a heaven for elephants, established in 2006.It expanded into a fully-fledged elephant rehabilitation centre in 2019 and was intended to upgrade its facilities to international standards and it will become the largest rehabilitation centre in the world. This paper throws light on tourists satisfaction of kottur Elephant rehabilitation centre Thiruvananthapuram

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A study on the tourist satisfaction of Kottur Elephant Sanctuary and Rehabilitation centre Thiruvananthapuram

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Abstract Lantana camara, a widely distributed flowering plant, has garnered increasing interest in medical research due to its diverse phytochemical composition and broad spectrum of biological activities. This review explores the therapeutic potential of L. camara, highlighting its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antitumor, antifilarial, antioxidant, antifertility, antimutagenic, wound healing, and mosquito repellent properties. We also discuss its pharmacological mechanisms, safety considerations, and future prospects in drug development. Antifilarial activity has been demonstrated through in vitro inhibition of filarial parasites, while its antioxidant capacity is attributed to high levels of flavonoids and polyphenols. The plant's antifertility effects are evident in animal studies, showing disruption of reproductive function. Furthermore, antimutagenic potential has been observed via Ames test assays, suggesting chemopreventive applications. The wound healing capability is supported by studies reporting accelerated tissue regeneration and collagen deposition. Lastly, essential oils from L. camara have shown potent mosquito repellent action comparable to synthetic agents. These findings collectively underscore the pharmacological relevance of L. camara and support further exploration for potential therapeutic applications. The review draws attention to the different aspects of this plants traditional uses, analytical work, pharmacological activities, and toxicology and also the potential uses with future prospects.

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PHYTOCHEMICAL,TOXICOLOGY

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Jyotirindra Nandi stands out in Bengali literature for his distinctive introspective style in the post-World War II era. Eschewing ideological optimism and escapism, his fiction probes human consciousness with Freudian psychoanalytic depth. Against a backdrop of global conflict, partition, and social upheaval, Nandi focuses on middle-class lives exposed to existential decline. These concerns coalesce in Samudra (1961), a short story inspired by Nandi's voyage to Puri. In Samudra, the narrator is a conventional middle-class husband whose orderly marital life is upended by the sea's majesty. The ocean's vast beauty shatters his habitual worldview and reveals latent erotic and destructive impulses: confronting the water's power evokes Freudian tensions of love and aggression, symbolized by his predatory gaze at the sleeping wife Hena. Birenbabu's eccentric uncle, an obsessed sea-wanderer, introduces mythic resonance. Believing the ocean to be a living Rudra-like deity, he carries legendary ideas of sacrifice (as in the Ramayana's justice episode) and infects the narrator with a quasi-religious mania. By contrast, the narrator's wife Hena initially embodies pragmatic middle-class morality, dismissing the sea's roar as mere noise. As the narrative progresses, however, Hena paradoxically gains agency: she experiences a wild delight in the waves, which in turn provokes her husband's jealousy and a Freudian sense of rivalry. Nandi's prose employs rich metaphor and sensory imagery (for example, evoking "a huge blue cup" of sun above the sea) to heighten the story's symbolic texture. Ultimately, Samudra reads as an eco-critical parable: the sea's churning duality instills both fear and awe, illustrating that treating nature as inert can invite catastrophe. The narrative's arc--from a nocturnal ocean vision to a train journey home--marks the narrator's psychological transformation. At the end, the protagonist finds relief in earthy sounds (crickets and rustling palms), symbolizing middle-class resilience and a tempered reconciliation with the natural world.

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 Keywords

Nature, Emptiness, Thrill, Middle-class ,Subconscious, Infinite, Myth, Vastness, Psychology, Symbolism, Beauty, Transformation, Violent, Ecocriticism.

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This study explores the contribution of Sufistic literature in promoting communal harmony in Assam, with special reference to the works of eminent Sufi saints such as Ajan Fakir and Syed Moinuddin Baghdadi. Sufism, with its emphasis on love, tolerance, and spiritual unity, played a significant role in bridging religious and cultural divides in Assam's diverse society. The research adopts a qualitative approach, drawing from historical texts, literary analysis, and oral traditions to examine how Sufi literature particularly Ajan Fakir's Zikirs has conveyed universal messages of peace and brotherhood. Field visits and interactions with local communities further reveal the enduring influence of Sufi teachings in fostering interfaith respect and social cohesion. The study also highlights the syncretic relationship between Sufism and indigenous spiritual movements like Vaishnavism, underscoring the inclusive cultural identity of Assam. In an age of growing religious intolerance, the values embedded in Sufistic literature remain deeply relevant as models of peaceful coexistence and cultural integration.

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 Keywords

Sufism in Assam, Communal Harmony, Ajan Fakir, Sufistic Literature, Interfaith Relations

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Abstract The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP-2020) is a significant step towards restructuring the Indian education system with a focus on holistic, inclusive, and flexible learning. This paper examines the core provisions of NEP-2020 concerning higher education, evaluates its expected outcomes, and analyzes the status of its implementation in the context of Assam. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study highlights opportunities and challenges faced by higher education institutions in Assam during the adoption phase of NEP-2020. Recommendations are offered to ensure effective implementation and alignment with the policy's goals.

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Keywords: NEP-2020, Higher Education, Assam, Implementation, Education Reform, Policy Analysis

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While cognitive impairment is a recognized feature of schizophrenia, its presence in bipolar affective disorder is currently an area of investigation. The individual who are suffering from the bipolar affective disorder they exhibit a wide range of cognitive deficit including neuropsychological and cognitive deficit. The prime objective was to find out the cognitive dysfunction among tribal patients of depression. Total 100 patients of Depression were constituted the sample for the study, in which 50 were tribal and rest 50 were non tribal. Sample were collected from the Psychiatric Unit of Sadar Hospital (PMCH) Medininagar, Jharkhand through judgmental sampling. Tools used for the study were Socio demographic and clinical data sheet, Beck Depression Inventory (Hindi version), PGI Battery for Brain Dysfunction. On socio demographic variable religious affiliation emerge as the sole factor showing significant differences between the study groups. On clinical characteristics of the sample no factor reveals any notable discrepancies between the tribal and non-tribal group. Tribal and non-tribal depressive patients are significantly differed on the Brain dysfunction sub -scale such as memory scale (t =4.71 p> .01), verbal intelligence quotient (t = 5.15, p > .01), Bender Gestalt test (t = 3.8, p >.01) and dysfunction rating score (t =2.10, p > .01). It showed that tribal patient showed more dysfunction in the area of memory functioning, verbal intellectual functioning task, visuo- motor coordination task and total dysfunction.

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Depression, Tribal, Cognitive dysfunction

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