Journal Press India

Editorial

January - June 2024, Volume 11, Issue 1

This issue of PRAGATI: Journal of Indian Economy has eight papers. The accent is on the rural economy and related issues.

The article on “From Tradition to Tech: Investigating the Relation between Technology, Credit Access and Job Stability among Handloom Workers,” by Jisha T.P. and Sumathy M. aims at investigating the impact of technology adoption and access to credit on the job stability of the workers of the handloom industry. The study area is Kuthampully handloom village. The study found that the majority of the workers are from rural areas and most of the workers use technology to understand the trend of the market. They also found that technology adoption and access to credit have an impact on the job stability of workers.

Another paper titled “Assessing Financial Performance of Indian Stand-alone Health Insurance Companies using Grey Relational Analysis (GRA)” by Naveenkumar K. and Ishwara P., finds out the financial performance of five standalone Indian health insurance companies for the years 2017–2018 to 2021–2022. The GRA approach is used to rate the performance indicators. The financial performance indicate that Star stood first with a score of 0.78, followed by Care, Niva, Manipal and Aditya, respectively.

“Navigating the Agricultural Landscape: Unveiling the Challenges Encountered by Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in Tamil Nadu” by Velmurugan P. S. and Sreelakshmy K., study Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in Tamil Nadu. It is found that small and medium farmers must deal with market uncertainty because the majority of institutional and policy supports go to large, progressive farms, while smaller farmers are left out, widening the gap between producers and customers. FPOs play a significant role in development and supporting member-based institutions of farmers in such circumstances.

On a different note, “Analysing Influences on Homoeopathic Subscriptions in Rural Communities: A Pilot Study,” by Subhash Kaushik, Renu Mittal, Divya Taneja, Megha Mittal and Arz Taneja, dwells on alternative medicine. In this paper, the authors, using primary data collected from 241 respondents residing in two villages in rural UP, have aimed at studying the factors influencing the subscription to such options of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) with special emphasis on Homoeopathy.

Rural micro-finance has been an oft repeated theme. In the paper on “Impact of Microfinance on Capacity Building of Rural Women in Kerala,” Nimisha Wilson, has demonstrated how microfinance creates household incomes for the poor, and makes them have permanent access to a range of high quality of financial services to finance their income generating activities, stabilize consumption, build assets, and protect against risk.

In the paper titled ,”Analysis of Various Factors Affecting the Marketing of Agricultural Products in Karnataka”, Preetham D, analyses the impact of various marketing factors on agricultural products and measures the different factors responsible for marketing agricultural products.

“Exploring the Income Patterns and Socioeconomic Impact of Women Engaged in Dairying: A Case Study of Jaipur District,” by Satyender Yadav and P. K. Singh, examines the economic and social implications of women dairy farmers in Jaipur District. . Women’s economic participation, especially in dairy, empowers them and reduces poverty.

Finally, the paper titled, “An Exploration into the Growth and Performance of Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank,” by Ranganatha J. and Prakash B. Nayak, aims to evaluate the impact of the Karnataka Vocational Guidance (KVG) on the state of Karnataka. The study’s findings indicate that the KVG Bank granted the highest number of loans to the agriculture industry among all financial institutions. This allowed the bank to have a substantial impact on the growth of the agricultural sector in rural areas.

We regret to inform our readers that Prof. Raghbrndra Jha, who was on our Editorial Board has expired. He was one of the greatest economists that India has produced. He was holding the Rajiv Gandhi Chair, as Founder Director of Australia South Asia Research Center, Australian National University. It is a great loss to the world of Economics. We deeply condole his death.

Happy reading and enhancing your own research.

Prof. K. V. Bhanu Murthy
Editor-in-chief

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