Authors: Asmi, Phalguni Bhardwaj, Mrityunjay Pal, Bhawana, Rohit, Srinika Mahato, Bharti Yadav, Akshita Paul Abstract Over the past decade, India’s Digital Revolution- marked by the Jandhan Aadhar Mobile Trinity, the UPI ecosystem and Direct Benefit Transfer, has fundamentally transformed citizen-state interaction. However, this shift hasn’t been gender neutral. The very infrastructure that was designed to guarantee benefits has gradually become another place of marginalization for millions of women, particularly those who live in rural and low-income households. This study explains that the Digital Gender Gap limits Indian women’s regular use of online government services and social welfare programs. Applying mixed-methods research methodology, a structured primary survey of 101 individuals from urban, semi-urban, and rural contexts is combined with a thorough analysis of government publications, scholarly literature, and policy materials spanning the years 2019 to 2025. The findings show a troubling situation. Even though more people have smartphones and digital skills are improving, women still face many challenges. The main problems are not having enough devices, social and cultural obstacles, worries about online safety, and relying on men to help. The study argues that when equal access to digital technology is assumed, India’s digital welfare system ends up reinforcing gender hierarchies in how it is designed. Therefore, policy responses must shift from infrastructure provision to feminist digital design, emphasizing affordability, gender-disaggregated accountability frameworks, local-language interfaces, and community-based support.

Authors: Prakriti Gupta, Shehrebanu Pipewala, Sneha Sarraju, K.P. Manoranjan Abstract This study examines the perpetuation of the digital divide in India despite the continuous efforts of the government to fix it. Using qualitative research methods and a review of existing literature, it is found that the digital divide goes beyond the access of having devices or internet and is deeply linked with socioeconomic inequalities, educational disparities, and other forms of social exclusion. The Marxian and Weberian schools of thought throw light on how class, status and power influence digital access and power. Through a close evaluation of case studies and current government initiatives, this paper highlights how current policies prioritise connectivity over digital inclusion. This study concludes that bridging the digital divide in India requires a peoplecentric approach that penetrates beyond developing connectivity and Infrastructure and advocates for a more sustainable digital Inclusion that can only be achieved by focusing on building digital literacy, affordability, capability, and a meaningful skill set amongst Individuals, which enables them to use the existing resources optimally. Index Terms– Digital Divide, India, Urban, Rural, Gendered differences, Digital divide and literacy rate

Authors: Gatik Garv Anand, Karuna Tandon, Nandini Lohia, Shreya S, Jui Kuche, Chirag Arora Abstract This study investigates the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in advancing the digital economy by enhancing productivity, innovation, and economic performance across the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. Employing a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed sources from 2018 to 2025, the analysis explores AI’s economic impacts, qualitative organizational transformations, and sectoral adoption variations. Findings reveal that AI significantly boosts productivity, operational efficiency, and decision-making through automation and data analytics, while also driving innovation and improved service delivery. However, sectoral disparities in adoption arise from differences in technological readiness, infrastructure, and digital maturity. Challenges such as skill-biased labor market shifts, uneven digital access, and organizational preparedness hinder equitable benefit distribution. The study proposes an integrated cross-sectoral framework for understanding AI-enabled economic transformation and emphasizes the need for effective governance, workforce reskilling, and inclusive digital infrastructure to realize sustainable and equitable growth in the digital economy. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, Economic Growth, Productivity, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Sectoral Analysis, Automation, Workforce Reskilling, Sustainable Development.

Authors: Sakshi Dayal, Avishikta Basu, Srijanti Chandra, Abhinanda Roy Chowdhury, Zoya Akhtar,Sudiksha Kumari Abstract This study examines consumer preferences between online and offline shopping in Kolkata, a metropolitan city in India that perfectly balances its rich retail roots with a fast growing digital landscape. It analyses the factors influencing shopping preferences, including convenience, product variety, pricing and trust, along with the impact of demographic variables such as age, gender and income. Primary data were collected via a survey-based methodology targeting different types of consumers in Kolkata, covering various ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds. This study investigates the balance between online and offline shopping and the growth of omnichannel behaviour, where consumers use both channels together. The findings offer ground-level insights to how people in Kolkata make their shopping decisions, and give practical relevance for retailers in other large Indian cities. To read full paper, download below…….

Author: Fariha Akter Lucky Abstract Background: College students of Bangladesh and India face immense levels of stress, anxiety, and burnout due to the competitive academic culture. Lack of awareness and legal negligence have made the situation problematic. This research studies the prevalence of stress, anxiety, burnout, and legal awareness as well as stressors among college students in both countries. According to the findings, it is evident that mental health issues are on the rise, making this study significant. Method: This study used a quantitative survey among the students of Bangladesh and India, with a cross-sectional analysis using both open and closed-ended questions. It focused on cities such as Dhaka, Munshiganj, Kolkata, Jaipur, etc. The participants included adult students of both nations.The data was analyzed using statistical tools named SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). Result: The outcome highlighted that a large number of students face moderate to high levels of mental pressure in college. Primary stressors such as academic pressure, peer pressure, and unsupportive faculty are identified with a lack of mental health support. There is a lack of awareness about the importance of mental health among students. Limitations: As we received only 52 responses, the result may not represent the state of the entire countries of Bangladesh and India, so we cannot generalize the result for all. Conclusion: The study shows that the college academic structure negatively affects the mental health of students. Also, there is a significant gap in awareness about Legal Policies Regarding Mental Health. To read full paper, download below…….

Authors: Parinika S, Arpita Seal, Sajith Angathan M S, Sweety Kumari, Amit Kumar Sahni, Jyotsana, Purbasa Singh INTRODUCTION The relationship between policy design and policy outcome in welfare governance has long constituted one of the central preoccupations of public administration scholarship. In the Indian context, this relationship is considered particularly complex due to the coexistence of an expansive legislative welfare architecture and persistent structural barriers to its implementation, particularly barriers in administrative capacity, infrastructural deficit, social stratification and the institutional incentives that shape bureaucratic behaviour at every level of the delivery chain. The result is a system in which the formal entitlements of citizens frequently diverge from the material benefits they receive. Understanding where this divergence narrows and under what conditions is among the most consequential questions to contemporary policy research. The Public Distribution System (PDS) represents perhaps the most instructive site for this inquiry. As the primary instrument of food security policy in India, the PDS operates at an intersection of constitutional commitment, fiscal transfer and last-mile administrative execution that exposes the structural tensions inherent in large-scale welfare governance. Its chronic weaknesses, such as leakage, exclusion error, intermediary capture, and the persistence of informal power within formally regulated supply chains, have been extensively documented in this paper. Less thoroughly examined, however, are the conditions under which these pathologies can be meaningfully attenuated through deliberate institutional intervention and the structural limits that such intervention inevitably encounters. It is precisely this question that the state of Chhattisgarh is positioned to answer. Established as a separate administrative unit in 2000, Chhattisgarh inherited a governance environment characterised by weak institutional capacity, high structural poverty, a significant Scheduled Tribe population concentrated in geographically remote and infrastructurally underserved regions, and a PDS apparatus distinguished chiefly by the scale of its dysfunction. Estimates from the early reform period suggest that approximately 52% of allocated food grains were diverted before reaching their intended beneficiaries, a figure that reflects not merely administrative inefficiency but the systematic capture of the distribution mechanism by private intermediaries operating with impunity in the absence of credible oversight. To read the paper, please download below……

Author: Sujal Kumar Poddar, Aasvi Kedia, Ditti Baid, Suryansh Pratap Singh ABSTRACT This study investigates the structural and economic disconnect between India’s municipal waste management ambitions and the lived realities of the informal waste workers who form the actual backbone of the country’s recycling ecosystem. While modern policy frameworks, exemplified by the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) guidelines of 2022 and urban clean-city campaigns, promote a highly formalized, capital-intensive vision of the circular economy, they systematically marginalize the informal sector, which handles 60% to 70% of urban recyclable waste. Utilizing primary survey data collected from 110 informal waste workers across Indian urban clusters, this paper analyzes the micro-economic constraints, behavioral realities, and institutional dynamics that govern waste worker decision-making. The empirical findings indicate that waste workers are not inherently unaligned with environmental sustainability; rather, their practices are strictly bounded by severe financial precarity, high transaction costs, and systemic institutional exclusion. Descriptive and cross-tabulation analyses demonstrate that over 57% of surveyed workers earn less than ₹10,000 per month, and 81.8% experience high financial instability, leaving them with zero economic margin to absorb the costs of enhanced segregation or safety compliance. Furthermore, the existing fiscal framework, such as an 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on recyclable scrap, drives transactions into untaxed, informal cash networks, penalizing formalization. This paper argues that India’s circular economy cannot succeed through top-down corporate monopolization. Instead, sustainable waste management requires an incentive-compatible policy framework that restructures fiscal policies, enforces informal cooperative sourcing quotas within EPR, provides micro-level neighborhood infrastructure, and leverages municipal co-management models to elevate informal workers into recognized green-collar professionals.

Authors: Dhriti Jade¹ ,Rajni Kumari² , Kiya Kamdar³  ABSTRACT This study delves into the contemporary workings of patriarchy, and exposes how dynamic and resilient it continues to be as it navigates through social and cultural contexts today. Patriarchy has diversified into countless social structures, cultural environments, and individual encounters. The patriarchal order not only perpetuates a division between the genders based on claimed superiority and hierarchy, fostering inequality in our private and public lives but is also constantly reinvented through everyday actions, cultural norms and institutional practices which allow it to remain prominent within our modern lives. It explores how patriarchal notions are entrenched, subtly reproduced, and negotiated on an everyday basis within society. We contest that the traditional yardstick to measure patriarchy has become archaic.  Within this larger context, the study will also explore the manifestation of this system via social media as a contemporary space where patriarchal notions are reproduced and simultaneously challenged. While such platforms do provide avenues for feminist conversations, organizing, and representation of minority narratives, it is also true that dissemination of gender stereotypes, discriminatory attitudes and harassment continue to be facilitated on the internet through algorithms and digital practices. Using established theoretical frameworks we analyse data and provide critical insights. Ultimately, the need for digital literacy and a greater degree of accountability on the part of the institutions will be discussed in order to effectively confront the complex workings of patriarchy.

Authors: Ankit Raj , Japho Esther Rani ABSTRACT India is heavily dependent on energy imports, leaving its macroeconomic stability sensitive to global fuel supply shocks and price volatility. The analysis of this paper explains the impact of international oil price fluctuations in low-income households through direct price pass-through, fiscal policy interventions, and indirect inflationary trends. Incorporating unit-level data from the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022–23 and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2022–23, this study analyzes household consumption adjustments and the distributional incidence of fuel subsidies across rural and urban income cohorts between 2019 and 2023. Bivariate and descriptive analysis reveal an extreme spending polarization: while fuel budget shares remain rigid across all income levels, the poorest rural households devote nearly 60% of their monthly budgets to food security, leaving them zero financial buffer during oil shocks. Furthermore, the findings expose a distinct pro-rich bias in the absolute delivery of fuel interventions, where wealthy urban households capture up to ₹2,540.8 in annual subsidy benefits compared to just ₹635.2 captured by the rural poor. that universal fuel subsidies are failing to protect vulnerable populations and recommend transitioning toward targeted Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) and progressive subsidy reduction mechanisms.

Author: Keertana Deepak | St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai | Email: keertanadeepak@gmail.comABSTRACT This research examines the structural transformation of India’s education sector from 1999 to 2025, focusing on the nexus between privatization, escalating costs, and labor market outcomes. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study finds a significant paradox: while primary private enrollment tripled to 45% and gender parity was achieved in secondary schooling, the qualitative dividend remains constrained. Econometric analysis reveals that while privatization correlates with higher test scores, it imposes severe affordability thresholds that limit advanced attainment for low-income households. Furthermore, a persistent education-employment mismatch results in high unemployment and a 7% wage penalty for overeducated workers, particularly women. The findings suggest that unchecked marketization has transitioned the system from an engine of mobility into a mechanism for reproducing privilege. We advocate for a shift toward outcome-oriented policies, rigorous private sector regulation, and reaching the 6% GDP public spending benchmark to secure India’s demographic dividend.