Volume 14 | Issue 1 |

 Abstract

Financial inclusion has emerged as a cornerstone of inclusive growth strategies in India, particularly for rural development. With nearly two-thirds of its population residing in rural areas and dependent on agriculture and allied activities, India faces the persistent challenge of extending financial services to its hinterlands. Bridging gaps in access, usage, and quality of financial services is critical not only for poverty reduction but also for enhancing productivity, fostering entrepreneurship, and achieving sustainable development goals. This article examines the evolution, current status, key initiatives, challenges, and recommendations for strengthening financial inclusion in rural India.

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 Keywords

Financial Inclusion, Rural development, Equitable Growth

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This paper investigates STEMROBO, an assistive artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem created to improve K-12 STEAM education, operating under the brand name STEMROBO Technologies. According to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, the study sought to determine how well STEMROBO's integrated components the AI Connect platform, physical and virtual innovation labs, and teacher professional development programs promote inclusive, experiential, and inquiry-based learning. Ten educators and three administrators participated in semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and observations of both in-person and virtual innovation lab sessions as part of a qualitative descriptive technique. The results of the thematic analysis showed that STEMROBO successfully combines hardware kits, AI-powered platforms, and scaffolded curriculum to increase teacher capacity, promote inclusion, and enhance student engagement. However, barriers such as limited digital infrastructure, high initial costs, and the need for sustained technical support were identified. The findings suggest that STEMROBO holds significant potential as an assistive AI tool for STEAM education, provided that systemic challenges are addressed through targeted investment and capacity-building initiatives by the school administrations.

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Key Words - STEAM Education, Assistive AI, Robotics, UDL, NEP 2020, STEMROBO Technologies.

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Object detection plays a vital role in modern computer vision applications by enabling automated understanding of visual scenes. This paper presents an efficient deep learning-based human detection system using a YOLO-based object detection architecture. The proposed model is trained on a large-scale, single-class annotated dataset to ensure robustness against variations in scale, position, and environmental conditions. Data preprocessing and augmentation techniques are employed to improve generalization and reduce overfitting. The model's performance is evaluated using standard metrics including Precision, Recall, mAP@0.5, and mAP@0.5-0.95. Experimental results demonstrate steady loss convergence and consistent improvement in detection accuracy across training epochs, indicating reliable learning behavior. The framework achieves accurate localization of human instances while maintaining computational efficiency, making it suitable for real-time applications such as surveillance, crowd monitoring, and intelligent vision systems. The proposed approach provides a scalable foundation for future extensions to multi-class detection and deployment on edge-based platforms.

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 Keywords

Object Detection, YOLO, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), PyTorch, Model Training, Precision, Recall and MAP Evaluation.

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In the financial landscape of 2026, portfolio management has evolved from a static exercise in asset allocation to a dynamic, AI-integrated discipline. This paper explores the transition from Harry Markowitz's Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) to modern "Alpha-Enhanced" strategies. We examine the critical role of diversification in an era of global value chain disruptions, the rise of AI infrastructure as a core asset class, and the shift from traditional ESG to pragmatic, climate-resilient investing. The study concludes that successful management now requires a "human-in-the-loop" approach, leveraging predictive analytics while maintaining ethical oversight.

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 Keywords

Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), Asset Allocation, 2026 Financial Trends, Artificial Intelligence in Finance, Risk Management, Sharpe Ratio, ESG Pragmatism.

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Healthy food nourishes body mind and soul. Like pure water, sunlight, clean air, good sleep and exercise, nutritious food is another important requirement for healthy life. Ayurveda considers proper food as the best medicine for body, mind, and soul. Healthy food promotes healthy life and unhealthy food promotes illness and affects metabolism. Hinduism in India through Sanatan way of life, promotes various foods which are essential for a healthy life. The Sanatan practices through religious rituals promotes such foods according to occasions and seasons. In many such rituals Panchamrit is used as a prominent mixture of different food elements for bathing of idols. It is developed by mixing of five elements which are milk, curd, Ghee, Honey and raw sugar or jaggery. These five elements are called as five amrit or five great elements to promote healthy life. This paper here is an attempt to understand the nutritional and medicinal values of five elements used in Panchamrit through case study method.

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Food, Ritual, Nutrition, Health, element

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Indigenous systems of governance and justice continue to play a crucial role in regulating social life among tribal communities in Northeast India. Among the Mossang sub-tribe of the Tangsa community of Arunachal Pradesh, the traditional village council--known as Kha-pho-Rung--functions as the principal institution of governance, dispute resolution, and social regulation. Composed of the village headman (Gashung-liwang), elders, and individuals well-versed in customary law, the council derives legitimacy from long-standing customs rather than codified statutes. Despite its centrality in Mossang society, Kha-pho-Rung remains largely undocumented in academic literature. This paper examines the structure, authority, and functioning of the Mossang traditional village council, with particular emphasis on its mechanisms of dispute settlement and the nature of justice it delivers. It further analyses the continued relevance of Kha-pho-Rung in the context of state expansion, formal judicial institutions, and modern legal frameworks. Drawing primarily on oral narratives, field observations, and secondary literature, the study highlights the restorative and community-centric orientation of Mossang customary justice and underscores the need for greater scholarly engagement with indigenous legal institutions in Arunachal Pradesh.

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Traditional, Village council, Mossang, Kha-pho-Rung, Customary law, Dispute resolution.

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Groundwater forms an important freshwater commodity in the semi-arid and hard-rock provinces of India, with its distribution governed by complex relationships between geological, geomorphological, topographical and climatic factors. The present investigation outlines a comprehensive framework for spatially prognosticating groundwater potential zones (GWPZ) in a selected section of the Mahanadi River Basin, Sambalpur district, Odisha, using GIS-based thematic analysis in conjunction with comparative machine learning methodologies. Twelve conditioning variables relevant to groundwater availability, including geology, geomorphology, land use/land cover, soil characteristics, elevation, slope, curvature, topographic position index (TPI), topographic wetness index (TWI), lineament density, drainage density and precipitation, were processed and analysed as part of a GIS environment. The identification of groundwater potential was completed through the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) using the combination of seven predictive modelling paradigms: Frequency Ratio (FR), Logistic Regression (LR), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), k-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and XGBoost. Model efficacy was evaluated based on receiver operating characteristic-area under the curve (ROC-AUC), ground truth validation accuracy and Cohen's Kappa statistics. Findings show that the Artificial Neural Network (ANN; Accuracy= 93.75% and Kappa= 0.90) and Random Forest (RF; Accuracy= 91.25% and Kappa= 0.86) models outperform the other approaches in groundwater potential forecast, whereas the Frequency Ratio (FR), although it shows a discernible trade-off of the AUC, has lost its spatial reliability. Good groundwater potential zones are mostly coincident with landscapes that have low slope, high lineament density, good geomorphologic characteristics, and moderate drainage density. These results demonstrate that the combination of GIS and machine learning models significantly enhances the accuracy and reliability of groundwater potential mapping and therefore provides an effective decision support tool for sustainable groundwater management and site selection for groundwater extraction systems in river basin areas.

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Groundwater potential, GIS, Machine learning, Random Forest, ANN, ROC-AUC, Mahanadi River Basin.

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Self-regulation skills are critical during college life, a transformative phase marked by exploration, peer influence, and substance experimentation risks among first-year students. This study assessed self-regulation levels for substance abstinence among college students in Kozhikode district. This descriptive survey examined self-regulation skills for abstinence among 100 first-year college students in Kozhikode district using a non-experimental approach and random sampling. Data from the Adolescent Self-Regulatory Inventory were analysed with descriptive statistics. Results showed 12.77% of students had low self-regulation skills and 87.33% moderate self-regulation skills, highlighting a need for targeted interventions to enhance abstinence capabilities.

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self-regulation skills, substance abstinence, college students, first-year students

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ABSTRACT The enactment of the Mediation Act, 2023 marks a significant transformation in India's dispute resolution framework by providing a comprehensive statutory foundation for mediation as an effective alternative to adversarial litigation. The Act seeks to institutionalize mediation, promote consensual dispute resolution, and reduce the burden on the already overburdened judicial system. This research paper critically examines the impact of mediation proceedings introduced under the Mediation Act, 2023, with particular emphasis on its legal, social, and institutional implications. The study adopts a doctrinal and analytical research methodology, relying on statutory provisions, judicial precedents, policy documents, and scholarly literature to evaluate the effectiveness of mediation under the new legal regime. The paper analyses key features such as mandatory pre-litigation mediation, time-bound procedures, confidentiality of proceedings, legal enforceability of mediated settlement agreements, and the establishment of the Mediation Council of India. These provisions collectively aim to enhance efficiency, accessibility, and public confidence in mediation mechanisms. The research highlights that mediation proceedings under the Act have the potential to significantly reduce judicial backlog, lower litigation costs, expedite dispute resolution, and preserve interpersonal and commercial relationships. Additionally, the recognition of online and community mediation expands access to justice, particularly for rural and marginalized populations. However, the paper also identifies critical challenges, including concerns regarding mandatory mediation, uneven quality of mediators, lack of public awareness, and possible enforcement complexities. The study concludes that while the Mediation Act, 2023 represents a progressive step toward collaborative justice, its long-term success depends on effective implementation, continuous training of mediators, institutional support, and judicial cooperation. The Act has the capacity to reshape India's dispute resolution culture, provided it balances efficiency with fairness and voluntary participation.

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 Keywords

Mediation Act, 2023; Mediation Proceedings; Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR); Pre-Litigation Mediation; Enforceability of Settlement Agreements; Access to Justice; Judicial Backlog; Confidentiality in Mediation; Mediation Council of India; Online and Community Mediation

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Abstract This paper studies how tribal people in West Bengal are developing. It uses simple language and clear facts. The study looks at their income, education, health, and how government schemes help them. Both numbers (data) and real stories from people are used. The aim is to see what is working, what is not, and what can be improved. All information and data are properly referenced from books, reports, and government websites. This paper is original and does not copy from anywhere else.

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Tribal, West Bengal, Development, Education, Health, Government schemes

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and The Open Definition