This issue of PRAGATI has a special focus on microfinance and women empowerment along with areas of topical interest such as inflation and consumer forums. Women empowerment has been one of the primary areas of importance in policy making and the paper by Ms. Ankita Raj and Prof. A M Agrawal revolves around the empowerment of women through a novel business model. The study concludes that the rural women of India can be given work-from-home opportunities by which they would have extra money to pay for healthy food and, fulfill the bequest motive which is very prevalent in the country. Another paper by Dr. Satendra Kumar Yadav and Mr. Ram Kumar Dwivedi, on ‘Role of Microfinance in Inclusive Growth of India’ aims at understanding the role of micro-finance in distributing financial services to the maximum number of poor of India. The paper concludes that the average loan per borrower is Rs.11,425 and 94% of this is being used for productive purposes. The total client base of MFIs constitutes 27% minorities, 30% SC/ST communities and 97% borrowers are females.
The paper by Dr. M. Manikandan and Prof. R. Jayanthi reviews the inflation rate in the long run. The inflation rate was below 6% for 38 years and above 6% for 40 years out of 78 years beginning from 1939-40 to 2016-2017. The paper concludes that many, therefore, accept as true that India is to be an inflation driven country. Prof. Sanju Karol and Mr. Ajay Kumar, examine the role of SHG micro-credit as a tool of capacity development and women’s empowerment in rural areas of Hamirpur and Una districts in Himachal Pradesh. The paper concludes that the majority of respondents either repaid or are repaying the loan regularly. This is a good sign because it enhances the credibility of self-help groups. In majority of cases the training provided to the members of the self-help groups to enhance their capacity, skills and ability was found sufficient.
Dr. Sheetal Kapoor has contributed a refreshingly different paper on ‘Effectiveness of Consumer Forums in India’. The author identifies important questions stemming from discontinuities in CPA, the working of the consumer forums in India, and suggests implementation of the New Consumer Protection Bill, 2018, mediation for speedy redressal of consumer complaints. Another paper related to consumers by Dr. Reetika Jain highlights the behaviour of e-consumers in India. The study also compares the global trends of e-consumers world over vis-à-vis the Indian online shoppers. Some of the grey areas highlighted by the study include security issues, increasing the e-consumer trust on online payment mode, internet penetration in tier 2 and 3 cities, easy entry and financing route for e-business.
Dr. Bhaskar Biswas, in his paper, discusses asset management and profitability for select pesticides and agro chemical companies in India. The author finds that there was significant correlation between profitability and asset management ratios for selected companies for the period of study. Mr. Ranjeet Kumar Mishra has contributed a research paper on determinants of firm’s performance using an unbalanced panel data related to 143 listed Indian companies from 14 manufacturing industries. The results confirm that international diversification has positive impact on firm’s performance while firm age is found to have negative impact on performance. The findings also shows that industrial affiliation has an impact on firm’s performance.
The above contributions endorse the fact that the journal has been gaining in terms of themes, varied authors and regions. While there is a lot of scope for improvement, many of the papers are very good. It has been our endeavour to provide this issue well in time. I hope you enjoy reading it.
