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Covid-induced lockdowns have increased the importance of technology in education. Though access to technology as well as availability of the internet remain a major concern for a lot of children in the global south, children with intellectual disabilities are disadvantaged even more as most of the e-content is developed keeping in mind the average learner. Unstructured interviews were conducted with children with intellectual disabilities studying in government schools in Haryana as well as their teachers and parents. Thematic analysis of the interviews was conducted to understand the use-patterns of mobile phones by children with intellectual disabilities. Findings suggest that these children are learning to use mobile phones on their own or with some support and are able to navigate the complexities of these smartphones quite well. They use these devices mostly for their entertainment. This paper then reflects on the need and strategies to develop these technologies in ways that they can be used as effective tools for teaching children with intellectual disabilities, especially in the inclusive education system in developing countries. The paper reflects on the need to develop technology and tools using flexible and exploratory designs to enhance the learning processes for children with intellectual disabilities from the lower income strata. This study highlights the importance of being able to use mobile phones by children with intellectual disabilities belonging to low income families. Following this, the article argues for designing of mobile phones suitable for use by children with intellectual disabilities using playfulness and explorations, and Building e-content keeping the elements of playfulness and exploration which can enhance the learnings of this group of students which is often ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In India, about one third of tuberculosis (TB) patients diagnosed at tertiary hospitals are missed during a referral to peripheral health institutes for treatment. To address this, we assessed whether mobile voice call reminders to TB patients after diagnosis at a tertiary hospital decrease the proportion of "pretreatment loss to follow-up" (PTLFU), compared with the conventional paper-based referral. Design: A two-group parallel-arm randomized controlled trial was conducted. Setting: The study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital at Puducherry, South India. Participants: All newly diagnosed TB patients, both pulmonary and extrapulmonary, who were referred for treatment from the selected tertiary care hospital and possessed a mobile phone were eligible to participate. The participants were enrolled between March 2015 and June 2016 and were randomized to study groups using the block randomization with allocation concealment. Intervention: The participants in the intervention arm received standardized mobile voice calls reminding them to register for anti-TB treatment on the second and seventh day after referral in addition to the conventional paper-based referral received by the control group. Primary outcomes: Patients not started on anti-TB treatment within 14 days of referral were considered as PTLFU. The outcome of PTLFU was ascertained through phone calls made on the 14th day after referral. The intention-to-treat analysis was used, and the proportion of PTLFU in the study groups and the risk difference with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. Results: Of the 393 patients assessed for eligibility, 310 were randomized to the intervention (n = 155) and control (n = 155) arms. In the intervention arm, 14 (9%) out of 155 were PTLFU compared with 28 (18%) of the 155 patients in the control arm. The absolute risk difference was 9% (95% CI [1.5, 16.6], P = 0.01). Conclusion: Mobile voice call reminder to patients is a feasible intervention and can reduce PTLFU among referred TB patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New and emerging technologies have always been playing the vital role in shaping the different services of libraries. These technologies not only help the users to quick, quality and efficient services but also provide a chance to library and information professionals to think outside the box to make their services effective and responsive. Top trends will be familiar to some readers who will hopefully learn of new equipment to expand their knowledge. Other readers will be made aware of trends that are outside of their experience. This is the nature of trends in our current technological and educational environments. The change is constant, but it affects different libraries at different level. With the arrival of affordable smart mobile phones, libraries all over the world have been trying to utilise them for the betterment of their services. QR code is one of the technologies which can be used with smart phones. In India the use of QR Code and smart phones though started late but in these days emerging as basic element of their day to day life and accelerating technology adoption. In this paper author has discussed and highlighted on QR codes and their use in library. It discusses on how the QR Code technology can enhance the library services with Quick and Quality as prime role. This paper is limited to the library based use and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two decades, telecommunication market has been continuing a huge growth in urban, semi-urban and rural regions of India. Investigating and choosing the desirable cellular mobile telephone service providers (TSPs) based on operative constraint can facilitate to obtain the ideal of TSPs selection. Here, the evaluation commonly encompasses different TSP options under various operational factors; thus, the assessment of TSPs can be considered as a rigorous multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) issue. This paper initiates a structure for the exploration of the TSPs in the Madhya Pradesh region, India. To do this, a framework associated with grey relational analysis (GRA) on intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) is planned to obtain the performance of various telecom participants. The developed approach is based on the conception of the best and worst solutions. To find the attribute weights, a divergence measure is developed and employed by relative comparisons. Additionally, to show the proficiency and practicality, a selection problem of TSPs options of Madhya Pradesh circle, India is presented within the IFSs context. By employing the developed model, an expert can enlarge tactics to enhance the performance by standard operational factors. Comparison and sensitivity analysis are considered to validate the developed approach in the prioritization of the TSPs options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, Telecom sector has been enduring a massive growth for over two and half decades in the bandwidth, preference of services and depth of penetration in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. Exploring the service providers or selecting the best cellular mobile telephone service providers (CMTSPs/TSPs) according to operational performance parameter can help to achieve the goal of telecom service provider selection (TSPS). Here, this assessment generally comprises various TSPs alternatives and different operational performance criteria; therefore, TSPS could be considered as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. The analytical data have been taken from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Jan–Mar 2017. Most of the data vary from 1 month to another. Thus, these small ranges of variation in the data are incorporated with the intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFNs). In this paper, we develop an outranking method, intuitionistic fuzzy ELECTRE (IF-ELECTRE), for MCDM problems. Proposed method is based on divergence measure, operators of IFNs, some modifications of classical ELECTRE method. In the MCDM, the criterion weight determination is a vital issue for the accuracy of evaluation results. In the process of calculation of criterion weight, concordance and discordance values, we propose new Jensen–Shannon divergence (JS-divergence) for IFSs to overcome the shortcoming of the existing ones and demonstrate different elegant properties of the proposed one. Since the uncertainty is an inevitable feature of MCDM problems, the proposed method can be a valuable tool for decision-making in an uncertain atmosphere to determine the partial-preference outranking order. To express the strength and reasonableness of the proposed method in the real-world MCDM problems, a TSPS problem is implemented. Using the proposed framework, a decision expert can make a strategy to improve the performance by benchmarking operational parameters. Finally, a comparison is discussed between the results of the proposed method and the existing ones for validating the proposed method. This analysis shows that the proposed method is efficient and well consistent with the other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to lack of a central bureaucrat in mobile ad hoc networks, the security of the network becomes serious issue. During malicious attacks, according to the motivation of intruder the severity of the threat varies. It may lead to loss of data, energy or throughput. This paper proposes a lightweight Intruder Node Detection and Isolation Action mechanism (INDIA) using feature extraction, feature optimization and classification techniques. The indirect and direct trust features are extracted from each node and the total trust feature is computed by combining them. The trust features are extracted from each node of MANET and these features are optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm as feature optimization technique. These optimized feature sets are then classified using Neural Networks (NN) classifier which identifies the intruder node. The performance of the proposed methodology is studied in terms of various parameters such as success rate in packet delivery, delay in communication and the amount of energy consumption for identifying and isolating the intruder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty affects many people, but the ramifications and impacts affect all aspects of society. Information about the incidence of poverty is therefore an important parameter of the population for policy analysis and decision making. In order to provide specific, targeted solutions when addressing poverty disadvantage small area statistics are needed. Surveys are typically designed and planned to produce reliable estimates of population characteristics of interest mainly at higher geographic area such as national and state level. Sample sizes are usually not large enough to provide reliable estimates for disaggregated analysis. In many instances estimates are required for areas of the population for which the survey providing the data was unplanned. Then, for areas with small sample sizes, direct survey estimation of population characteristics based only on the data available from the particular area tends to be unreliable. This paper describes an application of small area estimation (SAE) approach to improve the precision of estimates of poverty incidence at district level in the State of Bihar in India by linking data from the Household Consumer Expenditure Survey 2011–12 of NSSO and the Population Census 2011. The results show that the district level estimates generated by SAE method are more precise and representative. In contrast, the direct survey estimates based on survey data alone are less stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth in India's mobile telephony during the last decade coincided with a robust growth in its trade with China. A variety of imported equipment from China played a critical role in augmenting the use of mobile phones and expansion of networks in India. This paper studies the trends of these imports and examines the reasons for their penetrating deep into the Indian market. It argues that Chinese imports bridged a serious supply-side deficiency in India's telecom sector: the absence of a modern indigenous equipment manufacturing industry. Pointing out that development of the latter has been stunted due to low R&D, limited innovations, lack of access to finance, and liberal access to imports, the paper argues that Chinese imports are likely to continue until these conditions prevail, notwithstanding security concerns over such imports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substitutability between mobile and fixed phones has become an important consequence of telecom sector deregulation in India since 1991. This paper estimates the socio-economic determinants of household demand for mobile and fixed phones, and tests for substitutability between mobile and fixed phones, based on a binary logit model and using a small sample survey data from the Karnataka State in South India. The results show that the nature and magnitude of determinants are different between mobile and fixed phones. Estimated cross price elasticity offers empirical evidence for substitutability rather than complementarity between fixed and mobile phone services. This evidence is symmetric in mobile and fixed phone models. The empirical results are shown to have implications for policy discussion on subsidization by the Access Deficit Charge and bases for Universal Service Obligation. In view of rapid changes in the telecom market, a periodic nationally representative survey may be necessary to generalize the conclusions and implications of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Mobile phones, which were introduced around a decade ago in 1995–1996 in India, are becoming the dominant means of accessing communication. At the end of 2005–2006, there were 90 million mobile subscribers in India in comparison to 50 million subscribers for landlines. The increase in mobile phones has been phenomenal in comparison with landlines since the introduction of mobiles in the country. The main aim of this paper is to estimate future trends and analyze the pattern and rate of adoption of mobile phones in India. The paper uses S-shaped growth curve models for the same. It is found that mobile-density (number of mobile phones per 100 inhabitants) in India will increase from 8.1 in 2005–2006 to 36.5 in 2010–2011 and 71 in 2015–2016. Consequently, the mobile subscriber base is projected to increase from 90 million in 2005–2006 to 433 million in 2010–2011 and nearly 900 million in 2015–2016. The projected rapid growth in the mobile subscriber base will have important implications for future plans of mobile operators, infrastructure providers, handset suppliers and vendors. Mobile operators should be ready with contingency plans to deploy and operate infrastructure including customer care, billing, applications, etc., faster than that they might have initially planned. Infrastructure providers, handset suppliers and vendors should be prepared to respond to such plans. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Previous studies have identified affect as constitutive of and woven into everyday life. Less work has focused on how affect is designed and produced through consumer services and goods to modulate human–technical assemblages for commercial and economic ends. In this paper, I draw on social geography, affect studies, and postcolonial media studies to analyse value creation in the Indian mobile phone market, specifically in the deployment of an Indian form of workaround called ‘jugaad’. Following nonrepresentational analyses of digital practices, I identify this market as a collection of human–technical assemblages that are marketed through a rhetoric of frugal innovation or jugaad. Moving through examples from fieldnotes, case studies, and reports, the analysis of the affective atmospheres of Indian mobile phone marketing communications appraises televised Bharti Airtel adverts. Findings of this analysis suggest affect has spatial, temporal, and economic dimensions, as well as being embedded in everyday experiences of a newly distributed subaltern agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of gender empowerment is a common concern all over the World. This issue has now acquired new dimensions with the advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in development countries like India. It has potential to empower women through by overcoming their physical boundaries and access to better economic & business opportunities and education & health services. This paper aims to study the impact of mobile phone access and usage by women from rural areas who are hitherto deprived and isolated due to various social and economic reasons. In total, 200 women (100 users and 100 non-users) were interviewed in two villages in backward or poor districts of Uttar Pradesh. The women interviewees described their experiences, their access & uses of mobile phone and its impact on their lives and barriers or obstacles of accessing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telecommunications has been one of the success stories of economic reforms in India. From a teledensity of 2 percent in the not too distant past the sector has grown to a point where the teledensity exceeds 60 percent. The Indian cellular market is marked by strong competition, a large number of operators and some of the cheapest tariffs in the world. The sector experiences growth rates in excess of 80 percent in terms of the number of subscribers. However, all is not well in this sector. There have been a number of upheavals in the past and the latest one involves alleged favouritism in allocating spectrum. This paper analyzes the state of competition in the cellular mobile industry in India. Standard measures of competition such as HHI and concentration ratios are used as well as market share, revenues, access to funds and profits. We also look at the degree of rivalry in the industry through changes in rankings in market share. We provide a brief discussion of the major developments in telecommunications and cellular mobile in particular after the introduction of reforms. Effects of policy making by different institutions within India are discussed in relation to their effect on competition and market development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We focus on aspects of the weather in India in two of our articles, beginning on p. 83 with Ancy Thomas and her co-authors' paper, which asks 'How accurate are the weather forecasts available to the public in India?' As in much of the world, services are now available from a range of providers, in particular through mobile phones and personal computers. As in Britain, there is much interest in the weather in India, where heat, drought, pollution, chill and torrential rainfall are common visitors, but on an irregular basis. As elsewhere in the world, orography plays an important part in the variability of the Indian climate and day-to-day weather. Compared with a range of weather parameters, observed at both manned and automatic weather stations of the India Meteorological Department, forecasts from the Real Time Weather System, AccuWeather and Weather Underground all verify relatively poorly, although performance varies in space and time, as well as by parameter. Sporadic rainfall is a characteristic of the weather of India, in the months preceding the arrival of the monsoon in June and July. Priya Narayanan and her co-authors look at changes in this precipitation in 'Trend analysis and forecast of pre-monsoon rainfall over India' on p. 94. They conclude that although changes in this rainfall can be seen in data, the variation is different by month and location. In addition, it seems likely that the trend towards change will persist in future years. On p. 88 James and Samuel Curran look at the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide from Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii in order to examine the rate at which this atmospheric carbon is sequestered. 'Indications of positive feedback in climate change due to a reduction in Northern Hemisphere biomass uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide' explains that, although there is not only an increase in year-on-year atmospheric carbon dioxide, the evidence of significant carbon sequestration in this record is changing. The intra-annual fall in concentrations between May and September shows that this may be reaching a limit, the oceans and biomass less able to absorb the CO2 we produce. Finally a viewpoint article 'Shakespeare's Tempest, witchcraft and the Little Ice Age' looks at the rather gruesome effects of the relatively cold climate between 1350 and 1850. Gerald Stanhill shows how crop failures, shipwrecks and more generally tough living conditions in Europe led to witchcraft trials and their portrayal in the works of William Shakespeare, starting on p. 100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]