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2757 items in total found

Working Papers | 1992

Exit Policy: Implications and Issues for Discussion

Mehta Mridula and Srivastava Uma Kant

The country has recently liberalised the equity participation to 51% by foreign companies and even 100% by NRIs. In addition, the package contains many other measures to liberalise the investment climate. It is expected that more foreign investment will flow into the country and that there will be an allround spurt in the investment in the industrial development. The investors, however, went an option for speedily closing down the unit or restructuring it by retrenching surplus labour, if necessary, in case of failure. This paper is divided into four parts. Part I presents the magnitude of sickness, part II analysis with the policies to draft with industrial sickness, part III the new approach, and part IV the issues for discussion on exit policy.

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Working Papers | 1992

Development of the Capital Market in India - A Regulatory Perspective

Gupta Ramesh

Capital Markets are an important mobilizer of resources for the corporate sector. Investors' confidence is key to the healthy developments of capital markets, it is necessary that comprehensive and adequate laws exists to regulate security industry to protect investors interests and rights. The laws should also provide for an effective nodal regulatory agency to ensure fair play, discipline and integrity in the investment business. The paper review the current problems in working of the Indian capital markets and implementation of the security regulations. It suggests measures to improve efficiency of the markets, proposes a comprehensive regulatory framework and outlines the nature of implementing authorities. Further, it recommends a nodal regulatory authority independent of government interference which would be responsible for implementing the legislation. This agency would need to develop itself as a viable entity with its own infrastructure, trained manpower and professional work culture. For investors' protection, some additional measures like frequent disclosure of reliable information, creation of Investors Protection Fund, setting up of Investors Protection Advisory Council and promotion of local Investors' Associations are suggested. For quick redressal of grievances, an independent quasi-judiciary machinery is proposed. Since an individual investor is unable to take action because of disproportionate expenses involved in initiating the action, the laws should also provide for public interest litigation by investors association and other agencies on behalf of investors.

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Working Papers | 1992

Regionalizing A National Input-Output Table

Dholakia Bakul H

In the present paper it is argued that the most popular among the non-survey methods the RAS method is not a consistent and efficient method to regionalise the national input-output tables. An alternative non-survey method is, therefore, proposed as a solution to the problem when data on industry/commodity-specific value added as well as final demand are available besides the gross outputs at the regional level.

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Working Papers | 1992

Learning Relationships Among Classes Specified by Examples

Yegneshwar S

Learning by examples is a commonly used method of knowledge acquisition in expert systems. The learning examples are past cases whose classification is known. When the number of classes is high, learning relationships amongst classes aids in sequential classification and therefore results in better explanations. A methodology to learn relationships amongst a given set of classes aids in sequential classification and therefore results in better explanations. A methodology to learn relationships amongst a given set of classes using a distance measure is described in this paper. This distance which is shown to be a metric is evaluated on the descriptions of the classes. The description of a class is learnt from its examples. The relationship learnt using this distance metric is shown to converge in the limit. The methodology described learns meaningful relationships for two applications commonly used by machine learning research groups.

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Working Papers | 1992

Resource Monotonicity of Bargaining Solutions

Lahiri Somdeb

In this paper we establish that main solutions to bargaining problems display a resource monoticity property in bilateral monopoly situations when preferences exhibit consumption externalities. Suitable assumptions are invoked to establish the results.

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Working Papers | 1992

Estimating Biomass Potential for Biofuel Conversion in India: Some Methodological Issues

Moulik T K and Mehta Swati

As resources diminish and needs increase, it has become important to utilize waste materials as fuel. This paper discusses some methodological issues on the biomass conversion into fuel. Biomass is an organic matter formed by plants, trees, agricultural crops, crop residues, and by-products of forestry and agricultural industries. Utilization of indigenously available biomass resources can reduce the production cost and alleviate the problems of disposal and pollution.

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Working Papers | 1992

Values in Search of Education

Sheth N R

This paper is based on an amateur research effort to understand how social values are transmitted through non-formal education. The point of departure for the study lies in some currently expressed views on deterioration of values in society with serious implications for human survival and welfare. The nature of values as a part of social reality makes it difficult and hazardous to identify and observe them in an objective study. Values would have to be chosen and examined somewhat arbitrarily. In such an arbitrary framework of values, the author has described the value education component of the activities of three projects in socio-economic development. The description is followed by some tentative thoughts on education in values. At the end, some candid questions are raised on the theme of the paper.

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Working Papers | 1992

Conserving Diversity of Sustainable Development: The Case of Plants of Insecticidal and Veterinary Medicine Importance

Anil K. Gupta, Patel Kirit, and Patil B L

The debate on north-south relations, sustainable development and maintenance of biodiversity has assumed renewed seriousness in the light of current controversy on intellectual property rights. While the right of the nations have been taken into account, rights of the poor people who have produced or maintained much of the ecological knowledge have not been adequately acknowledge. The paper provides list of several hundred plants which have been used for veterinary medicine or plant protection purposes by the local people in India and elsewhere. Our continuing work on documentation of local technical innovations and ecological knowledge systems indicates considerable potential for building upon peoples' knowledge for developing sustainable technologies. We recognize the need for cataloguing this knowledge more systematically so that inter-disciplinary screening can take place for extending in some cases the frontier of science. Institutional arrangements will need to be made so that the producers and preservers of this knowledge are not denied fair returns from the local resource or a local practice when it is commercialized. We also argue that the descriptors of germplasm used in various gene banks need to be modified to acknowledge and catalogue the cultural and ecological knowledge of the people associated with a given local crop variety or an animal breed. It is also hoped that systematic research on plant-derived pesticides might help in reducing and in due course eliminating the hazardous chemical pesticides. A strong case is made for redefining the framework for conservation of bio-diversity so that stakes and insights of local people become the basic building block of future developmental strategies and interventions.

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Working Papers | 1992

Building upon Peoples Ecological Knowledge: Framework for Studying Culturally Embedded CPR Institutions

Anil K. Gupta

We have earlier argued (Gupta 1990) that portfolio of activities evolved by households for adjusting with risks includes a combination of apparently rational and not so rational strategies of livelihood. The portfolio is based on resources governed by different property right regimes on one hand and ethical and cultural norms on the other. In this paper I argue that institutions for natural resource management are a part of evolutionary cultural, religious and social experience of any community. While it is inevitable that conflicts in the access to resources or their utilization emerge from time to time. These conflicts need not erode completely the network of common property knowledge systems. The conflicts and convergence may simultaneously take place along different planes and levels of consciousness. One cannot analyze resource management institutions without understanding the conceptualization of nature and repertoire of responses that a community evolves to adjust with changes in the natural phenomena. The incidence of drought in dry regions, hailstorm or landslides in hill areas, occurrence of plant, animal or human diseases particularly the ones which are contagious (and call for collective quarantine) and any other natural calamity creates stress on the social institutions. Folk literature including riddles, songs, proverbs, adages, stories, theater and jokes provide mechanisms for internalizing certain values which in their explicit form are either difficult to imbibe or to sustain. In our anxiety to look for rules and related order we may miss the creativity that underlies the experimental and innovative mind of peasants and pastoralists in these regions. I present in part one a framework for looking at boundaries of beliefs, eco-sociological context and institutional images for natural resource management. In part two I present instances which illustrate the creative aspect of people's indigenous eco-sociological knowledge systems (IEKS). In part three, I deal with the lessons for institution building requiring incorporation of indigenous knowledge as a building block of modern institutions. Finally issues for further research are identified.

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Working Papers | 1992

Sustainability Through Biodiversity: Designing Crucible of Culture, Creativity and Conscience

Anil K. Gupta

There is a widespread concern world over about non-sustainability of present developmental strategies and structures in both developed as well as developing world. Most debates have however, ignored the relationship between the region of high biodiversity and high poverty (see IIM Working Paper NO.938). in this paper we have not only pursued the cultural and institutional roots of this relationship but also identified practical ways in which the people preserving biodiversity can be compensated. Paper makes a strong case for changing the nature of discourse and modifying existing epistemology of environmental debate. In part one, the relationship between diversity and deprivation is analyzed. In part two, the cultural and institutional aspects are studied. In part three, examples form indigenous ecological knowledge system including nature related folk songs generating eco-ethics are reviewed. Cultural diversity and the traditions of indigenous enquiry are pursued in part four. In part five, we discuss the reasons for protests emerging from these regions and the nation state's response. In part six, I discuss the mechanism for compensating farmers for preserving diversity. In part seven, the legal, fiscal and organizational routes for paying compensation are described. Part eight lists the ethical dilemma in conducting discourse on bio-diversity. In last part, areas for follow up action by academics, planners and NGOs are illustrated.

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