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Online digital media has become a lifeline for humankind. But it has also become a major source of disruptions just like climate change. During the global pandemic, COVID-19, while the whole world is trying their best to blunt the spread of coronavirus, there is a vile trend of circulation of disinformation, fake news and sharing false data related to the virus on social media platforms creating panic among people. The review paper found that the present online information ecosystem matrix is driven by exploiters with the objective to demean democratic bodies, inflame societal divides, manipulate public opinion and influence citizens' voting choice to distort the democracy. Examination of the current trend led to disturbing reality as the content, discourse, tone and intent of social media interactions have undergone an evolution that threatens not only free speech, privacy, data protection, national security but democracy as a whole. The study also highlighted about the rise of new-age technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Algorithm, Robotics, and Machine Learning (ML) have exacerbated the problem to new heights as these technologies play a disproportionately impactful role in disseminating disinformation by amplifying it to distort democracy and free speech. The research work resonated with the growing clamour for greater legal regulation to control the menace of social media misuse among democracies around the globe. It addressed the concerns of internet companies and rights activists who fear tight measures would imperil free speech. The paper tried to examine the challenge how to regulate that doesn't stifle the freedom of expression and speech vis-à-vis keeping online content safe and protected. The fact-finding review paper is based on existing laws, regulations, policies, research papers, media reports, articles on instances of disinformation and fake news to find solutions and future developments keeping India in focus. The subject of study assumes significance in a democracy like India which has recently notified a new regulatory regime - 'The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021,' to strengthen the regulatory architecture to tackle misuse of social media to deal with the fast- growing new communication challenges. The study critically examines these new guidelines and also highlights the patchy policy syndrome of internet content governance in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the magnitude of changes that is happening in the Indian banking sector in terms of the technology used, human resource deployed and change in the customer experience. The emergence of gig workforce has made banks rework their strategy. Here, we will describe how Indian banking sector is battling legacy systems and trying to adopt to latest technologies. The gig economy which has been playing a major role in many other sectors have not made a significant impact in the banking industry. The paper discusses the reasons this and gives a first-hand perspective of how the banking sector is getting disrupted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In India, one of the prime focuses of a post-graduate management program is to prepare students and make them job-ready. Masters in Business Management (MBA) program helps students to imbibe theoretical and practical skills which are required by the industry, which can make them hit the ground running from the day they start their career. Many students (almost 40–50%) get pre-placement offers based on their performance in summer internship. The selection for summer interns by the corporate happens within a few months of the student joining the MBA program. Signaling theory in education indicates that the level of productivity of an individual is independent of education, but the educational qualification acts as a testimony for higher ability. However, this theory does not explain the reason for the mismatch between "education and work" or "education and the disparity in salary" between individuals who earn differently but have the same qualification. The paper aims to explore three attributes namely – "employability"– the chance of being employable; "pre-placement offers" – the chance of securing a job offer based on the performance in internship and "salary" – the chance of bagging a good job offer with a high salary. Design/methodology/approach: The authors have used longitudinal data consisting of 1,202 students who graduated from reputable business schools (B-Schools) in India. In the study, the authors have used predictive analytics on six years data set that have been gathered. The authors have considered 24 attributes including educational background at the graduate level (BE, B Tech, B Com, BSc, BBA and others), score secured in class ten (high, medium and low), score secured in class twelve (high, medium and low), score secured in graduation (high, medium and low), competency in soft skills (high, medium and low), participation in co-curricular activities (high, medium and low) and social engagement status (high, medium and low). Findings: The findings of the study contradict the signaling theory in education. The findings suggest that the educational qualification alone cannot be the predictor of the employability and the salary offered to the student. The authors note that the better performance at a lower level of qualification (class 12) is the strong predictor in comparison to the student performance at their graduation and post-graduation level. The authors further observed at the post-graduate management education level that soft skills and participation in co-curricular activities are the major deciding factors to predict employability and pre-placement job opportunity and marks secured in class 12 is one more factor that gets added to this list to predict salary. The paper can immensely help management graduates to focus on key aspects that can help to hone appropriate skills and also can help management institutions to select the right students for management programs. Research limitations/implications: The analysis and the predictive model may apply to Indian B-Schools wherein the quality of students are almost the same or better. Predictive analytics has been used to explain the employability of management graduates alone and not any other. Practical implications: The authors' study might be useful for those students who often fail to understand "what" skills are the most important predictors of their performance in the pre-placement and final-placement interviews. Moreover, the study may serve as a useful guide to those organizations that often face dilemmas to understand "how" to select an ideal candidate for the particular job profile from a campus. Originality/value: The authors believe that the current study is one of the few studies that have attempted to examine the employability of management graduates using predictive analytics. The study further contradicts that the signaling theory in education does not help better explain the employability of the students in extremely high-paced business environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early detection and identification of plant diseases from leaf images using machine learning is an important and challenging research area in the field of agriculture. There is a need for such kinds of research studies in India because agriculture is one of the main sources of income which contributes seventeen percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP). Effective and improved crop products can increase the farmer's profit as well as the economy of the country. In this paper, a comprehensive review of the different research works carried out in the field of plant disease detection using both state-of-art, handcrafted-features- and deep-learning-based techniques are presented. We address the challenges faced in the identification of plant diseases using handcrafted-features-based approaches. The application of deep-learning-based approaches overcomes the challenges faced in handcrafted-features-based approaches. This survey provides the research improvement in the identification of plant diseases from handcrafted-features-based to deep-learning-based models. We report that deep-learning-based approaches achieve significant accuracy rates on a particular dataset, but the performance of the model may be decreased significantly when the system is tested on field image condition or on different datasets. Among the deep learning models, deep learning with an inception layer such as GoogleNet and InceptionV3 have better ability to extract the features and produce higher performance results. We also address some of the challenges that are needed to be solved to identify the plant diseases effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies emphasize accuracy in machine learning regression models, yet scalability and execution efficiency are often overlooked, critical for large datasets or extensive computations. This paper introduces a scalable, distributed Spark MLlib regression model through the best subset selection approach to predict Covid-19 statistics in India, demonstrating high accuracy, scalability, and execution efficiency. Notably, limited research focuses on tree-based regression, particularly gradient boost regression, in the context of the Covid-19 dataset. The proposed work optimizes regression models for accuracy and execution time on Spark clusters of varying sizes using the best subset selection approach. Evaluation encompasses Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), R2 Error for accuracy, and execution time analysis. Results indicate superior prediction accuracy in tree-based regression, with Gradient Boosted Tree Regression (GBTR) leading, and Random Forest Regression (RFR) surpassing Decision Tree Regression (DTR). Accuracy remains consistent across Python library, Spark MLlib on a single machine, and clusters of varying sizes, with Spark MLlib displaying lower execution times than Python's machine learning library on a single machine. Furthermore, execution times decrease substantially within Spark clusters, particularly for the iterative GBTR. This research uncovers scalability and execution efficiency aspects, highlighting tree-based regression's accuracy and advocating for Spark MLlib's efficacy in enhancing execution efficiency, especially across multi-node clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and evaluate the existing and future impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning on the global economy. It includes viewing the inclusion of AI in different sectors, its impact on industries, the trends of the forerunning companies that are capitalizing on AI and the idea of crystalizing exponential growth while maintaining a balance between the understanding of humans and the subsequent possibilities of AI. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on secondary research, reviewing literature based on different industries and perspectives. Findings: The global potential of AI is exponential; the development of AI should be effective. Globally, we see contrasting views, defining the consequences of AI. Hence, the balance between humans and AI, protocols and a global regulatory system needs to be established to prevent catastrophic results soon. Practical implications: The benefits of AI are enormous. The rising incorporation of AI must take into consideration the basic safety fundamentals for a better future. Social implications: This paper will enable readers to understand the importance of AI in the global economy, its current involvement in major industries and the subsequent need for balance in technology. Originality/value: This conceptual review is by its nature and original contribution and, specifically, an interpretation for India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handwritten script recognition is a vital application of the machine-learning domain. Applications like automatic license plate detection, pin-code detection, and historical document management increases attention toward handwritten script recognition. English is the most widely spoken language in India; hence, there has been a lot of research into identifying a script using a machine. Devanagari is a popular script that is used by a large number of people on the Indian subcontinent. In this paper, a level-wised efficient transfer-learning approach is presented on the VGG16 model of a convolutional neural network (CNN) for identifying isolated Devanagari handwritten characters. In this work, a new dataset of Devanagari characters is presented and made accessible to the public. This newly created dataset is comprised of 5800 samples for 12 vowels, 36 consonants, and 10 digits. Initially, a simple CNN is implemented and trained on this new small dataset. During the next stage, a transferlearning approach is implemented on the VGG16 model, and during the last stage, the efficient fine-tuned VGG16 model is implemented. The obtained accuracy of the fine-tuned model's training and testing came to 98.16 and 96.47%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to evaluate the predictive ability of four machine learning models: logit, decision tree, random forest and 2-class support vector machine and to identify the key predictors of default. The models are applied on a dataset of 57 companies under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in India and a matched sample of 55 solvent companies spanning over ten years from FY06-FY 2016. The solvent companies are matched on size (log of total assets) and sector and are rated 'AAA' and 'AA'. Thirty-one explanatory variables are identified by us for the study which include (i) financial ratios, (ii) size and age of the company, (iii) ownership pattern and (iv) market ratios. The empirical findings reveal that random forest strongly outperforms all other models in their predictive ability, followed by SVM, DT and logit model. The findings also confirm relevance of size and age of the firm, market ratios and ownership pattern as predictors of default in addition to financial ratios. We conclude that both parametric (logit) and non-parametric models are useful in the study of default prediction as reflected in the robustness of all models with accuracy of over 75%. These models can help banks in strategising their lending decisions based on credit quality of borrower firms. Our contribution is that to the best of our knowledge this is the first paper that is using the database of companies that are legally defined as insolvent and bankrupt and also taking a balanced sample to avoid biasness and inaccuracy from data imbalance. Also, this study has gone beyond traditional financial statements in identifying key default drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Silicosis has been one of the most serious occupational public health problems worldwide for many decades. The global burden of silicosis is largely unknown, although it is thought to be more prevalent in low and medium-income countries. Individual studies among workers exposed to silica dust in various industries, however, reveal a high prevalence of silicosis in India. This paper is an updated review of the novel challenges and opportunities for silicosis prevention and control in India. Main body: The unregulated informal sector employs workers on contractual appointment thereby insulating the employers from legislative provisions. Due to a lack of awareness of the serious health risks and low-income levels, symptomatic workers tend to disregard the symptoms and continue working in dusty environments. To prevent any future dust exposure, the workers must be moved to an alternative job in the same factory where they will not be exposed to silica dust. Government regulatory bodies, on the other hand, must guarantee that factory owners relocate workers to another vocation as soon as they exhibit signs of silicosis. Technological advances such as artificial intelligence and machine learning might assist industries in implementing effective and cost-saving dust control measures. A surveillance system needs to be established for the early detection and tracking of all patients with silicosis. A pneumoconiosis elimination program encompassing health promotion, personal protection, diagnostic criteria, preventive measures, symptomatic management, prevention of silica dust exposure, treatment, and rehabilitation is felt important for wider adoption. Conclusion: Silica dust exposure and its consequences are fully preventable, with the benefits of prevention considerably outweighing the benefits of treating patients with silicosis. A comprehensive national health program on silicosis within the public health system would strengthen surveillance, notification, and management of workers exposed to silica dust in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the importance of investigating DR using machine learning and a computational method to rank DR risk factors by importance using different machine learning models. The dataset was collected from four large population-based studies conducted in India between 2001 and 2010 on the prevalence of DR and its risk factors. We deployed different machine learning models on the dataset to rank the importance of the variables (risk factors). The study uses a t-test and Shapely additive explanations (SHAP) to rank the risk factors. Then, it uses five machine learning models (K-Nearest Neighbor, Decision Tree, Support Vector Machines, Logistic Regression, and Naive Bayes) to identify the unimportant risk factors based on the area under the curve criterion to predict DR. To determine the overall significance of risk variables, a weighted average of each classifier's importance is used. The ranking of risk variables is provided to machine learning models. To construct a model for DR prediction, the combination of risk factors with the highest AUC is chosen. The results show that the risk factors glycosylated hemoglobin and systolic blood pressure were present in the top three risk factors for DR in all five machine learning models when the t-test was used for ranking. Furthermore, the risk factors, namely, systolic blood pressure and history of hypertension, were present in the top five risk factors for DR in all the machine learning models when SHAP was used for ranking. Finally, when an ensemble of the five machine learning models was employed, independently with both the t-test and SHAP, systolic blood pressure and diabetes mellitus duration were present in the top four risk factors for diabetic retinopathy. Decision Tree and K-Nearest Neighbor resulted in the highest AUCs of 0.79 (t-test) and 0.77 (SHAP). Moreover, K-Nearest Neighbor predicted DR with 82.6% (t-test) and 78.3% (SHAP) accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water quality strongly influences sustainable growth of a healthy society and green environment. According to the International Initiative on Water Quality (IIWQ) of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP), it is essential to address water-quality issues holistically in developed and developing countries. Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization in many developing countries, groundwater - one of the major sources of drinking is getting highly affected. The traditional laboratory-based chemical testing process with conventional statistical methods is often used to analyze water quality. However, it is time-consuming. Recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based approaches have proven to be a better alternative for analysis and prediction of the quality of water, provided with its chemical components' data. In this paper, we present research focusing on groundwater quality analysis using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a case study of Odisha, an eastern- state of India and the data acquired from the Northern delta, the North Central Coast of Vietnam. The dataset in Vietnam is collected by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, providing technical regulations on water resources monitoring. The Central Groundwater Board and the Government of India collect the dataset from India. The target problem is formulated as a multi-class classification problem to predict groundwater quality for drinking suitability by WHO standards. AI methodologies such as logistic regression, K-NN, Support Vector Machine (SVM) variants, decision tree, AdaBoost and XGBoost are used. Prediction results have demonstrated that Adaboost, the XGBoost and the Polynomial SVM model accurately classified the Water Quality Classes with an accuracy of 92% and 98%, respectively. It would help decision-makers effectively choose the best source of water for drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling hydrological processes for managing the available water resources effectively is often complex due to the existence of high nonlinearity, and the associated prediction uncertainty mainly arising from model inputs, parameters, and structure. Despite several attempts to quantify the model prediction uncertainty, reducing the same for improving the reliability of models is indispensable for their wider acceptance. This paper presents a novel modeling framework for minimizing the prediction uncertainty in the streamflow simulation of the conceptual hydrological model (HBV) by integrating with the Bayesian‐based Particle Filter technique (PF) and machine learning algorithm (Random Forest algorithm, RF). Initially, the streamflow prediction interval (PI) is derived from the stochastically estimated parameters of the HBV model through the PF technique (HBV‐PF model). As the HBV‐PF model quantifies only parametric uncertainty, the RF algorithm was employed (HBV‐PF‐RF model) for further minimizing the prediction uncertainty by inherently taking care of different sources of uncertainty. The RF algorithm inherently combines the physics of the hydrological system (i.e., process‐based variables) with machine learning‐based approach to minimize the overall prediction uncertainty. The proposed framework was analyzed on Nepal and India's Sunkoshi and Beas River basins, through several statistical performance indices for assessing the accuracy and uncertainty of the model prediction. The framework was observed to be consistently improving the model performance minimizing the uncertainty in both watersheds. Therefore, the proposed framework can be considered to be more reliable in improving the prediction capability of hydrological models. Key Points: Development of a physics‐aware machine learning based hydrological model for streamflow simulationThe proposed framework characterizes the model prediction uncertainty, accounting different sources of uncertainty implicit/explicitlySignificant reduction in overall prediction uncertainty is achieved [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar energy utilization in the industry has grown substantially, resulting in heightened recognition of renewable energy sources from power plants and intelligent grid systems. One of the most important challenges in the solar energy field is detecting anomalies in photovoltaic systems. This paper aims to address this by using various machine learning algorithms and regression models to identify internal and external abnormalities in PV components. The goal is to determine which models can most accurately distinguish between normal and abnormal behavior of PV systems. Three different approaches have been investigated for detecting anomalies in solar power plants in India. The first model is based on a physical model, the second on a support vector machine (SVM) regression model, and the third on an SVM classification model. Grey wolf optimizer was used for tuning the hyper model for all models. Our findings will clarify that the SVM classification model is the best model for anomaly identification in solar power plants by classifying inverter states into two categories (normal and fault). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Passagens: International Review of Political History & Legal Culture is the property of Passagens: International Review of Political History & Legal Culture and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Rice is a staple food for roughly half of the world's population. Some farmers prefer rice cultivation to other crops because rice can thrive in a wide range of environments. Several studies have found that about 70% of India's population relies on agriculture in some way and that agribusiness accounts for about 17% of India's GDP. In India, rice is one of the most important crops, but it is vulnerable to a number of diseases throughout the growing process. Farmers' manual identification of these diseases is highly inaccurate due to their lack of medical expertise. Recent advances in deep learning models show that automatic image recognition systems can be extremely useful in such situations. In this paper, we propose a suitable and effective system for predicting diseases in rice leaves using a number of different deep learning techniques. Images of rice leaf diseases were gathered and processed to fulfil the algorithmic requirements. Initially, features were extracted by using 32 pre-trained models, and then we classified the images of rice leaf diseases such as bacterial blight, blast, and brown spot with numerous machine learning and ensemble learning classifiers and compared the results. The proposed procedure works better than other methods that are currently used. It achieves 90–91% identification accuracy and other performance parameters such as precision, Recall Rate, F1-score, Matthews Coefficient, and Kappa Statistics on a normal data set. Even after the segmentation process, the value reaches 93–94% for model EfficientNetV2B3 with ET and HGB classifiers. The proposed model efficiently recognises rice leaf diseases with an accuracy of 94%. The experimental results show that the proposed procedure is valid and effective for identifying rice diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change in price of a group of goods and services is reflected in terms of consumer price index (CPI), making it one of the most important economic indicators. This is also the mostly used measure of inflation. Forecasted CPI values help the Government to take corrective measures to control the economic conditions of the country. This paper implements and examines two machine learning models such as artificial neural network (ANN) and ANN model optimized with particle swarm optimization (PSO) known as ANN‐PSO to assess the accuracy in predictability of CPI. The data set for four groups such as food and beverages, housing, clothing, and footwear used for the calculation of all India CPI has been taken from the official website of the Government of India. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) has been used as the validator for model accuracy. The MAPE calculated for all experiments are less than 10% which indicates that the ANN‐PSO models used are highly accurate for prediction of CPI of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the different insider employee-led cyber frauds (IECF) based on the recent large-scale fraud events of prominent Indian banking institutions. Examining the different types of fraud and appropriate control measures will protect the banking industry from fraudsters. In this study, we identify and classify Cyber Fraud (CF), map the severity of the fraud on a scale of priority, test the mitigation effectiveness, and propose optimal mitigation measures. The identification and classification of CF losses were based on a literature review and focus group discussions with risk and vigilance officers and cyber cell experts. The CF was analyzed using secondary data. We predicted and prioritized CF based on machine learning-derived Random Forest (RF). An efficient fraud mitigation model was developed based on an offender-victim-centric approach. Mitigation is advised both before and after fraud occurs. Through the findings of this research, banks and fraud investigators can prevent CF by detecting it quickly and controlling it on time. This study proposes a structured, sustainable CF mitigation plan that protects banks, employees, regulators, customers, and the economy, thus saving time, resources, and money. Further, these mitigation measures will improve the reputation of the Indian banking industry and ensure its survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early-stage prediction of a disease is an important and challenging task. The application of machine learning techniques is playing an important role in this era. Thyroid is one of the chronic endocrine diseases, and approximately 42 million people in India are affected by this disease. This paper presents a comprehensive investigation into the enhancement of classification performance through the novel 'FeatureBoostThyro' (FBT) model. The study evaluates various machine learning algorithms, including stochastic gradient descent (SGD), K nearest neighbor (KNN), logistic regression (LR), naive bayes (NB), and support vector machine (SVM), in conjunction with diverse feature selection methods. The research systematically explores the impact of feature selection techniques such as information gain, relief F, chi-square, gini index, forward selection, backward selection, recursive feature elimination, and LASSO on model performance across the chosen algorithms. The analysis reveals notable variations in performance metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, providing valuable insights into the interplay between algorithm and feature selection. One main contribution of this research is the introduction of the FBT model, which consistently outperforms other models across various feature selection methods, making it a promising tool for addressing complex classification tasks. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of model selection and optimization in machine learning applications. The proposed model undergoes evaluation using two distinct datasets: the primary dataset acquired from Lata Mangeshkar Hospital in Nagpur and the secondary dataset obtained from the UCI dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the heart of India's livelihood lies agriculture, a foundational and ever-evolving sector. The realm of agriculture faces modern challenges, encompassing unpredictable climate fluctuations, insufficient irrigation infrastructure, and erratic weather conditions. Amidst these challenges, machine learning has emerged as a valuable tool for evaluating soil fertility and Crop assessment in agriculture. Ensemble machine learning methodologies have garnered attention for their potential to enhance predictive capabilities. These techniques involve constructing meta-classifiers that collectively contribute to improved predictive accuracy. This paper centers on the analysis of soil data acquired from testing laboratories, to predict fertility based on a comprehensive dataset. The study employs prominent ensemble machine learning algorithms, specifically focusing on boosting techniques, to elevate predictive accuracy and ensure heightened consistency. The assessment of soil fertility categories involved the examination of 12 carefully chosen attributes. Diverse soil parameters were measured to facilitate the prediction of soil fertility levels. The outcomes of the experimentation revealed that the application of the boosting technique using the Xgboost algorithm yielded superior accuracy compared to alternative ensemble classifiers, achieving a remarkable 96% accuracy rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mushrooms are fungi that play significant roles in ecosystems, food, and medicine. However, distinguishing toxic mushrooms from non-toxic ones is challenging, as their visual characteristics can be misleading. Deep learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, offers a promising approach to detecting and classifying mushrooms based on their toxicity. By training deep neural networks on datasets of labelled mushroom images, it becomes possible to create models capable of accurately differentiating between toxic and non-toxic mushrooms. Mushrooms are fungi that play significant roles in ecosystems, food, and medicine. However, manually distinguishing toxic mushrooms from non-toxic ones is a challenging and time-consuming task. This research work is to help the local farmers and exporters to identify the difference between the toxic and the edible mushroom which will eventually boost production and will directly have an impact on the economic growth in India. This paper compared different deep learning algorithms such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Resnet50, YOLO V5 and Alexnet, which have been found to be the most useful in classifying the mushrooms effectively as toxic and non-toxic respectively. The patterns in the images of the mushrooms have been predicted through the above classifiers. The validation techniques show SVM to be the most effective with an accuracy of 83%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text classification involves organizing textual information into predefined classes, a task which is particularly useful in domains like sentiment analysis, spam detection, and content labeling. In India, where a massive amount of information is generated daily through newspapers and social media, Hindi is one of the most widely used and spoken languages. However, there is limited research on Hindi text classification and, particularly, regarding Hindi news classification. This paper presents a research study to classify Hindi news articles published in Hindi-language newspapers in India by using and comparing various Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) algorithms. To prepare the textual news data for classification, pre-processing and feature engineering techniques, such as count vectorizer, Tf-Idf vectorizer and Doc2Vec, were used and applied to convert texts into vectors. This pre-processing step on the textual data was very challenging due to the presence of multimodal words, conjunctions, punctuation, and special characters in Hindi texts. The study considered Hindi news headlines from predetermined categories (Science, Sports, Entertainment and Business) and, among the different ML and DL models tested and evaluated, Linear Regression with Doc2Vec vectorizer and SGD classifier with Tf-Idf vectorizer produced best accuracies of 97.04% and 96.59%, respectively. The best performing DL model was found to be the Bi-LSTM with an accuracy of approximately 97% on the testing data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has a huge treasure of Visual art Architecture. In recent years, more attention is done to the digitization of these Indian Visual Arts Architectures for promoting the travel and tourism of the country across the world. Digitization will create a huge repository of Visual Arts Architecture images. But there exists no methodology to explore images of these huge repositories. In this paper, two machine learning-based methods were proposed that utilize these huge, digitized repositories and try to characterize the age and sub-age of Indian architectures based on the historical ontology available in the historical books. The first method was based on classification and the second method was based on segmentation. Two different variants of convolution neural networks were combined with fuzzy logic for the proposed methods. To analyze the results of the proposed methods performance evaluation matrix classification accuracy was used. The classification accuracy of the second method was best compared to the first method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The importance of monsoon rainfall cannot be ignored as it affects round‐the‐year activities ranging from agricultural to industrial. Due to the nonlinear and dynamic nature of monsoon rainfall, its accurate forecast becomes a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a novel deep and wide neural network model to predict summer monsoon rainfall using historical time‐series data of 118 years. We have considered Rajasthan as our area of study, which is the largest state of India with varying atmospheric regions. Two different types of datasets are used: gridded rainfall dataset from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and station rainfall data from Water Resources Department (WRD). Results obtained on both the datasets demonstrate that a single model works well in efficiently predicting summer monsoon rainfall in different geographical regions of Rajasthan, ranging from plains and plateaus to deserts and hills. We compare the results with various advanced deep learning algorithms such as 1‐dimensional convolutional neural network, long short term memory, and multilayer perceptron. The comparison results show that the proposed method clearly outperforms these algorithms in terms of its forecasting ability, which is evaluated using root mean square error and mean absolute error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime prediction is an effort to cut down the crime rate and criminal activities in the society. This paper concentrates on monitoring the crime trends in India using data from 2001 to 2019. The work analyzes the crime condition in India by following a top-to bottom approach and implementing visualization and machine learning algorithms. Heat map visualization of India is done to focus on specific crime types for all states. Furthermore, various demography of human population like age-groups, sex, caste, etc., are considered to have a larger perspective of the issue. The model also suggest proactive measures based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a continuing extensive incident globally affecting several million people's health and sometimes leading to death. The outbreak prediction and making cautious steps is the only way to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This paper presents an Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS)-based machine learning technique to predict the possible outbreak in India. The proposed ANFIS-based prediction system tracks the growth of epidemic based on the previous data sets fetched from cloud computing. The proposed ANFIS technique predicts the epidemic peak and COVID-19 infected cases through the cloud data sets. The ANFIS is chosen for this study as it has both numerical and linguistic knowledge, and also has ability to classify data and identify patterns. The proposed technique not only predicts the outbreak but also tracks the disease and suggests a measurable policy to manage the COVID-19 epidemic. The obtained prediction shows that the proposed technique very effectively tracks the growth of the COVID-19 epidemic. The result shows the growth of infection rate decreases at end of 2020 and also has delay epidemic peak by 40–60 days. The prediction result using the proposed ANFIS technique shows a low Mean Square Error (MSE) of 1.184 × 10–3 with an accuracy of 86%. The study provides important information for public health providers and the government to control the COVID-19 epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture, meteorological, and hydrological drought is a natural hazard which affects ecosystems in the central India of Maharashtra state. Due to limited historical data for drought monitoring and forecasting available in the central India of Maharashtra state, implementing machine learning (ML) algorithms could allow for the prediction of future drought events. In this paper, we have focused on the prediction accuracy of meteorological drought in the semi-arid region based on the standardized precipitation index (SPI) using the random forest (RF), random tree (RT), and Gaussian process regression (GPR-PUK kernel) models. A different combination of machine learning models and variables has been performed for the forecasting of metrological drought based on the SPI-6 and 12 months. Models were developed using monthly rainfall data for the period of 2000–2019 at two meteorological stations, namely, Karanjali and Gangawdi, each representing a geographical region of Upper Godavari river basin area in the central India of Maharashtra state which frequently experiences droughts. Historical data from the SPI from 2000 to 2013 was processed to train the model into machine learning model, and the rest of the 2014 to 2019-year data were used for testing to forecast the SPI and metrological drought. The mean square error (MSE), root mean square error (RMSE), adjusted R2, Mallows' (Cp), Akaike's (AIC), Schwarz's (SBC), and Amemiya's PC were used to identify the best combination input model and best subregression analysis for both stations of SPI-6 and 12. The correlation coefficient (r ), mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), relative absolute error (RAE), and root relative squared error (RRSE) were used to perform evaluation for SPI-6 and 12 months of both stations with RF, RT, and GPR-PUK kernel models during the training and testing scenarios. The results during testing phase revealed that the RF was found as the best model in forecasting droughts with values of r , MAE, RMSE, RAE (%), and RRSE (%) being 0.856, 0.551, 0.718, 74.778, and 54.019, respectively, for SPI-6 while 0.961, 0.361, 0.538, 34.926, and 28.262, respectively, for SPI-12 scales at Gangawdi station. Further, the respective values of evaluators at Karanjali station were 0.913 and 0.966, 0.541 and 0.386, 0.604 and 0.589, 52.592 and 36.959, and 42.315 and 31.394 for PUK kernel and RT models, respectively, during SPI-6 and SPI-12. Machine learning models are potential drought warning techniques because they take less time, have fewer inputs, and are less sophisticated than dynamic or scientific models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic wounds are associated with significant clinical, economic and quality‐of‐life burden. Despite the variety of wound imaging systems available in the market for wound assessment and surveillance, few are clinically validated among patients of Asian ethnicity. We aimed to clinically validate the accuracy of a smartphone wound application (Tissue Analytics [TA], Net Health Systems Inc, Florida, USA), versus conventional wound measurements (visual approximation and paper rulers), in patients of Asian ethnicity with venous leg ulcers (VLU). A prospective cohort study of patients presenting with VLU to a specialist wound nurse clinic over a 5‐week duration was conducted. Each patient received seven wound measurements: one by a trained wound nurse clinician, and three separate wound measurements using TA on each of the iOS and Android operating systems. Inter‐rater and intra‐rater reliability between clinical and TA‐based measurements were analysed using intra‐class correlation statistics, with values of <0.5, 0.5 to 0.75, 0.75 to 0.9, and >0.9 indicating poor, moderate, good and excellent reliability, respectively. 82 patients (51% males), with a mean age at 65.8 years, completed the 5‐week study duration. 25 (30%) had underlying diabetes mellitus. Chinese, Malay and Indian ethnicity comprised 68%, 12% and 11%, respectively. The VLU healed in 26 (32%) of patients within the study period. In total, 358 wound episodes with 2334 wound images were analysed. Inter‐rater reliability for length, width and area between wound nurse measurements and TA application measurements was good (range 0.799‐0.919, P < 0.001). Separate measurements of intra‐rater reliability for length, width and area within the iOS or Android systems were excellent (range 0.967‐0.985 and range 0.977‐0.984 respectively, P < 0.001). Inter‐rater reliability between TA used on the iOS and Android systems was also excellent (0.987‐0.989, P < 0.001). Tissue Analytics, a smartphone wound application, is a useful adjunct for wound assessment and surveillance in VLU patients of Asian ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air is the basis for the existence of life on Earth; but in the present age of modernization the degrading quality of air year by year, due to the growth of Industrialization, urbanization, automobiles, coal-fired thermal power plants, and various other factories is the matter of real concern. To predict the future growth of air pollutants numerous prediction models have been developed by researchers. Time-series ARIMA model although quite useful for forecasting but fails to handle non-stationary problems. Among all the existing forecasting models, wavelets along with the Machine learning models have proved to be very successful and have been widely used in various fields like mathematical modeling, signal recognition, image recognition, classification, function approximation, data processing, filtering, clustering, compression, robotics, and decision making. It is also used in the field of mathematical forecasting for developing efficient prediction models. This paper aims to develop a wavelet-ANFIS conjugation model and a wavelet-ARIMA coupled model along with the time-series ARIMA model for the prediction of black carbon concentration over the Raniganj, Jharia, and Bokaro coal mines of India, by considering a long term data obtained by NASA (http://nasa.gov/) and compare the results obtained by these models for determining the best prediction model. The validity of the results is tested with the help of error measures like RMSE, MSE, MAPE, MAE, and relative error. Results over the three sample sites conclude that the Wavelet-ANFIS conjugation approach outperforms the wavelet-ARIMA coupled approach and the simple time-series ARIMA model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change poses a major threat to global food security. Agricultural systems that rely on monsoon rainfall are especially vulnerable to changes in climate variability. This paper uses machine learning to deepen understanding of how monsoon variability impacts agricultural productivity. We demonstrate that random forest modelling is effective in representing rice production variability in response to monsoon weather variability. Our random forest modelling found monsoon weather predictors explain similar levels of detrended anomaly variation in both rice yield (33%) and area harvested (35%). The role of weather in explaining harvested rice area highlights that production area changes are an important pathway through which weather extremes impact agricultural productivity, which may exacerbate losses that occur through changes in per-area yields. We find that downwelling shortwave radiation flux is the most important weather variable in explaining variation in yield anomalies, with proportion of area under irrigation being the most important predictor overall. Machine learning modelling is capable of representing crop-climate variability in monsoonal agriculture and reveals additional information compared to traditional parametric models. For example, non-linear yield and area responses of irrigation, monsoon onset and season length all match biophysical expectations. Overall, we find that random forest modelling can reveal complex non-linearities and interactions between climate and rice production variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is the primary profession in India which relies on several climatic factors such as rainfall, temperature, humidity, etc., for the successful growth of crops. Weather and drought forecasting may help to take preventive measures in an unusual situation due to crop failure. Most of the existing work attempts to forecast the weather or analyse the reason for the occurrence of drought and its effects in the past. This paper adopts the machine learning model called the long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network to forecast the long-term rainfall and standardised precipitation index for drought estimation. The predicted annual rainfall from LSTM is taken as an input to forecast the drought conditions of India for the upcoming years, which is a unique approach and objective, and based on this work appropriate decisions can be made for future actions. The past 117 years of rainfall and drought conditions are compared with the recent 50 years by analysing the data in several ways in order to predict the future scenario. The forecasted results are compared with actual observations to demonstrate the effectiveness of the LSTM model to produce adequate results. The error and network loss of the model is 0.059 and 0.0036, which is minimal, and the forecasted rainfall level is almost equal to actual level specifically accuracy is 99.46% for the previous year, 2021. It was found that there is a rainfall decline of 0.04% every year. Apart from the prediction for the country, a clear picture of the region regarding drought forecasts is presented in this work. The real-time drought level is mild and moderate for most of the regions in the country which matches with the drought level determined using forecasted rainfall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focus on the drought monitoring and forecasting for semi-arid region based on the various machine learning models and SPI index. Drought phenomena are crucial role in the agriculture and drinking purposes in the area. In this study, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to predicted the future drought in the upper Godavari River basin, India. We have selected the ten input combinations of ML model were used to prediction of drought for three SPI timescales (i.e., SPI -3, SPI-6, and SPI-12). The historical data of SPI from 2000 to 2019 was used for creation of ML models SPI prediction, these datasets was divided into training (75% of the data) and testing (25% of the data) models. The best subset regression method and sensitivity analysis were applied to estimate the most effective input variables for estimation of SPI 3, 6, and 12. The improved support vector machine model using sequential minimal optimization (SVM-SMO) with various kernel functions i.e., SMO-SVM poly kernel, SMO-SVM Normalized poly kernel, SMO-SVM PUK (Pearson Universal Kernel) and SMO-SVM RBF (radial basis function) kernel was developed to forecasting of the SPI-3,6 and 12 months. The ML models accuracy were compared with various statistical indicators i.e., root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), relative absolute error (RAE), root relative squared error (RRSE), and correlation coefficient (r). The results of study area have been showed that the SMO-SVM poly kernel model precisely predicted the SPI-3 (R2 = 0.819) and SPI-12 (R2 = 0.968) values at Paithan station; the SPI-3 (R2 = 0.736) and SPI-6 (R2 = 0.841) values at Silload station, respectively. The SMO-SVM PUK kernel is found that the best ML model for the prediction of SPI-6 (R2 = 0.846) at Paithan station and SPI-12 (R2 = 0.975) at the Silload station. The compared with SVM-SMO poly kernel and SVM-SMO PUK kernel was observed, these models are best forecasting of drought (i.e. SPI-6 and SPI-12), while SVM-SMO poly kernel is good for SPI-3 prediction at both stations. The results have been showed the ability of the SVM-SMO algorithm with various kernel functions successfully applied for the forecasting of multiscale SPI under the climate changes. It can be helpful for decision making in water resource management and tackle droughts in the semi-arid region of central India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occurrences of extreme events, especially floods, have become more frequent and severe in the recent past due to the global impacts of climate change. In this context, possibilities for generating a near‐accurate streamflow forecast at higher lead times, which could be utilized for developing a reliable flood warning system to minimize the effects of extreme events, are highly important. This paper aims to investigate the potential of a novel hybrid modeling framework that couples the random forest algorithm, particle filter, and the HBV model for improving the overall accuracy of forecasts at higher lead times through the dynamic error correction schematic. The new framework simulates an ensemble of streamflow for estimating uncertainty associated with the predictions and is applied across two snow‐fed Himalayan rivers: the Beas River in India and the Sunkoshi River in Nepal. Several statistical indices along with graphical performance indicators were used for assessing the accuracy of the model performance and associated uncertainty. The modeling framework achieved the Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency of 0.94 and 0.98 in calibration and 0.95 and 0.99 in validation for the Beas and Sunkoshi river basin respectively for a 7‐day ahead forecast. Thus, the proposed framework can be considered as a promising tool having reasonably good performance in forecasting streamflow at a higher lead time. Key Points: Hybrid hydrological model integrates process‐based model with machine learning algorithm through data assimilation techniqueDynamic error correction framework capable of improving the streamflow forecast at longer lead time is proposedOverall the developed framework improves the forecast accuracy along with quantifying the model prediction uncertainty [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success factor of sentimental analysis lies in identifying the most occurring and relevant opinions among users relating to the particular topic. In this paper, we develop a framework to analyze users' sentiments on Twitter on natural disasters using the data pre-processing techniques and a hybrid of machine learning, statistical modeling, and lexicon-based approach. We choose TF-IDF and K-means for sentiment classification among affinitive and hierarchical clustering. Latent Dirichlet Allocation, a pipeline of Doc2Vec and K-means used to capture themes, then perform multi-level polarity indices classification and its time series analysis. In our study, we draw insights from 243,746 tweets for Kerala's 2018 natural disasters in India. The key findings of the study are the classification of sentiments based on similarity and polarity indices and identifying themes among the topics discussed on Twitter. We observe different sets of emotions and influencers, among others. Through this case example of Kerala floods, it shows how the government and other organizations could track the positive/negative sentiments concerning time and location; gain a better understanding of the topic of discussion trending among the public, and collaborate with crucial Twitter users/influencers to spread and figure out the gaps in the implementation of schemes in terms of design and execution. This research's uniqueness is the streamlined and efficient combination of algorithms and techniques embedded in the framework used in achieving the above output, which can be integrated into a platform with GUI for further automation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cotton is one of the major crops in India, where 23% of cotton gets exported to other countries. The cotton yield depends on crop growth, and it gets affected by diseases. In this paper, cotton disease classification is performed using different machine learning algorithms. For this research, the cotton leaf image database was used to segment the images from the natural background using modified factorization-based active contour method. First, the color and texture features are extracted from segmented images. Later, it has to be fed to the machine learning algorithms such as multilayer perceptron, support vector machine, Naïve Bayes, Random Forest, AdaBoost, and K-nearest neighbor. Four color features and eight texture features were extracted, and experimentation was done using three cases: (1) only color features, (2) only texture features, and (3) both color and texture features. The performance of classifiers was better when color features are extracted compared to texture feature extraction. The color features are enough to classify the healthy and unhealthy cotton leaf images. The performance of the classifiers was evaluated using performance parameters such as precision, recall, F-measure, and Matthews correlation coefficient. The accuracies of classifiers such as support vector machine, Naïve Bayes, Random Forest, AdaBoost, and K-nearest neighbor are 93.38%, 90.91%, 95.86%, 92.56%, and 94.21%, respectively, whereas that of the multilayer perceptron classifier is 96.69%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's ecosystem is still in a non-developed state and a low level of intelligence is showcased. Yet being a farming nation, the people are proud of what they produce. India is one of the biggest producers of agricultural products including major crops for red gram and groundnut, but not much attention is given to the way it is produced. The choices of the farmer and the combination of crops they cultivate represent a biodiversity strategy which offers a conservation technique for the bio-diversity of crop cultivation, which is extremely important for the long-term goals of sustainability of the modern agriculture which uses input of high energy. This paper discusses and looks upon the issues related to the alternate pathways for development in agriculture, mainly in the seeds of groundnut, along with the alternate cultivation of crops, prediction of crops placed in the context of a better sustainable landscape management plan in dry land agriculture. In dry land, low productivity of the crops maybe because of various damaging factors and parameters. This paper presents review of different AI based approaches that monitors the soil and nutrient patterns in dry-land agriculture also utilizing crops which fits for the suitable land which helps production and also the sustainability of the economic condition of the formers. The system helps in increasing the gains and profits by utilizing accurate details on dry-land agriculture in dry-land area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preterm birth (PTB) in a pregnant woman is the most serious issue in the field of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, especially in rural India. In recent years, various clinical prediction models for PTB have been developed to improve the accuracy of learning models. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, most of them suffer from selecting the most accurate features from the medical dataset in linear time. The present paper attempts to design a machine learning model named as risk prediction conceptual model (RPCM) for the prediction of PTB. In this paper, a feature selection approach is proposed based on the notion of entropy. The novel approach is used to find the best maternal features (responsible for PTB) from the obstetrical dataset and aims to predict the classifier's accuracy at the highest level. The paper first deals with the review of PTB cases (which is neglected in many developing countries including India). Next, we collect obstetrical data from the Community Health Centre of rural areas (Kamdara, Jharkhand). The suggested approach is then applied on collected data to identify the excellent maternal features (text-based symptoms) present in pregnant women in order to classify all birth cases into term birth and PTB. The machine learning part of the model is implemented using three different classifiers, namely, decision tree (DT), logistic regression (LR), and support vector machine (SVM) for PTB prediction. The performance of the classifiers is measured in terms of accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity. Finally, the SVM classifier generates an accuracy of 90.9%, which is higher than other learning classifiers used in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preterm birth (PTB) in a pregnant woman is the most serious issue in the field of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, especially in rural India. In recent years, various clinical prediction models for PTB have been developed to improve the accuracy of learning models. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, most of them suffer from selecting the most accurate features from the medical dataset in linear time. The present paper attempts to design a machine learning model named as risk prediction conceptual model (RPCM) for the prediction of PTB. In this paper, a feature selection approach is proposed based on the notion of entropy. The novel approach is used to find the best maternal features (responsible for PTB) from the obstetrical dataset and aims to predict the classifier's accuracy at the highest level. The paper first deals with the review of PTB cases (which is neglected in many developing countries including India). Next, we collect obstetrical data from the Community Health Centre of rural areas (Kamdara, Jharkhand). The suggested approach is then applied on collected data to identify the excellent maternal features (text-based symptoms) present in pregnant women in order to classify all birth cases into term birth and PTB. The machine learning part of the model is implemented using three different classifiers, namely, decision tree (DT), logistic regression (LR), and support vector machine (SVM) for PTB prediction. The performance of the classifiers is measured in terms of accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity. Finally, the SVM classifier generates an accuracy of 90.9%, which is higher than other learning classifiers used in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has increased the frequency of drought occurrence in various parts of the world. Drought as a complex phenomenon causes severe impacts on ecological and socio-economic status. Short-term and long-term occurrences of drought have made many regions vulnerable globally. This paper makes an attempt to assess drought vulnerability in Godavari Middle Sub-basin of India. Twenty-four site specific socio-economic and environmental factors were identified based on the extensive literature review. Drought frequency was assessed using standardized precipitation index (SPI). These datasets were divided into training (70%) and testing (30%) data. Frequency ratio (FR) model was utilized to establish relationship among drought conditioning factors and drought frequency. Weights obtained from the FR model were used as input to the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) model. Drought vulnerability results were validated using the testing data and receiver operating characteristic (ROC). The accuracy of ANFIS models for 1-month (0.957), 3-months (0.882), 6-months (0.964) and 12-months (0.938) showed high suitability of ANFIS model for the assessment of drought vulnerability. The findings revealed that very low normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and increasing trend of highest maximum and mean maximum temperature were major environmental factors which influenced high drought vulnerability in the sub-basin. High proportion of area under fallow land, high infant mortality rate (IMR) and moderate literacy rate were identified as major socio-economic factors making watersheds vulnerable during short and long-term droughts. Largest area of the sub-basin was found under high vulnerability for 3-months, followed by 6-months and 12-months droughts. Thus, the study calls for policy intervention towards lessening the impact of drought in highly vulnerable watersheds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a simple and effective framework to combine various data-driven machine learning (ML) algorithms for short-range reservoir inflow forecasting, including the large-scale climate phenomenon indices addressing forecasting uncertainty. Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting Regressor (GBR), K-Nearest Neighbors Regressor (KNN), and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) were employed for predicting daily reservoir inflows considering various climate phenomenon indices (e.g., Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, and Southern Oscillation Index) and hydroclimatic variables (e.g., precipitation), accounting for time-lag effects. After training the individual ML algorithm, a framework was developed to create an ensemble model using a robust weighted voting regressor (VR) method to quantify forecasting uncertainty and to improve model performances. The results of the study reveal that, for 2-day forecasts, the LSTM approach has the greatest influence on prediction accuracy, followed comparably by each model. However, none of the four models seem to be noticeably superior to the VR method, regardless of the prediction lead time. The developed framework was examined on a tropical reservoir, Bhadra reservoir Tunga-Bhadra River, located in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural areas largely lack access to improved drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) facilities in India. This requires documentation of WaSH practices at the local level for better understanding and sustainable development. In this paper, a global positioning system (GPS)-based household survey was carried out in 67 villages of Phagi tehsil using individual questionnaires to evaluate the existing WaSH conditions spatially at the panchayat level. Three sub-indices were used for WaSH risk areas mapping and prediction with the integration of machine learning algorithms. Survey results indicate the improvement in the availability of toilet facilities; however, a gap was found between toilet ownership and its usage by villagers. Data show that only six panchayats have almost zero open defecation practices among the 32 panchayats of Phagi tehsil. The findings highlight that presence of toilets in house, water supply in toilets, and high literacy rate lead to an increase in toilet usage by the population. WaSH index scores indicate that panchayats like Mandawari, Mendwas, Chandma Kalan, and Rotwara have worst conditions and fall in the high-risk category. Moreover, support vector machine regression (SVMR) results reveal that WaSH scores are mainly affected by open defecation (r = 0.94), water supply in toilets (r = 0.92), and female members' participation in sanitation facilities decision-making (r = 0.53), followed by literacy rate (r = 0.33). Findings demonstrate the association between gender inequalities and WaSH conditions, and the potential of the WaSH index as a monitoring tool by local policymakers to shrink the WaSH gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]