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The main objective of this paper is to investigate the economic determinants of female-owned proprietorships for 52 metro cities in India. The National Sample Survey (NSS) unit-level data are used for the analysis. The descriptive results show that women's proprietorship is much lower than its counterpart. The Probit regression results at the individual level show that women entrepreneurs do not have a bank account or computer but use the internet, are not registered under any act or authority, and do not expand considerably. They operate within household premises with a limited number of months and duration of a day, undertaking mainly contract basis. They also face several problems that hinder their activities. City-level factors such as work participation rate, consumption expenditure, higher levels of general and technical degrees, and vocational training are essential. The likelihood of becoming a female entrepreneur is negatively impacted by the two agglomeration variables of population size and participation in mixed activity. City-level poverty and inequality also adversely affect it. State-level Human Development Index, Gender Development Index, and Gender Inequality Index are also significant. Finally, we propose important policies to enable the city environment to improve women's entrepreneurship activities for higher and sustainable economic development. • Female-owned entrepreneurship (FOE) is essential for sustainable and inclusive economic growth in developing countries. • The agglomeration size, unequal economic distribution, and less female-friendly society discourage becoming FOE. • Knowledge spillovers, labour pooling, availability of public services, and infrastructure encourage FOE. • Cities need to increase investment, employment, level of education, and delivery of public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Integrated analysis of passenger and freight transport in India. • Policy-relevant pathways derived using soft-coupled models. • Considerable fuel-import foreign exchange savings off-setting high investments. • Over 80% GHG emission reduction possible in 2050 below business-as-usual scenario. Dependence on crude oil imports, high correlation with economic growth, and contribution to air pollution cause the transformations in transport sector in India to have significant ramifications. Moreover, these transitions are to be steered through the global and domestic sustainable development and carbon neutrality goals. In this paper, we determine the energy-environment-economy implications of transport sector dynamics by undertaking an integrated analysis using a novel methodological approach involving two main aspects: soft-coupling the IMACLIM-IND and AIM/Enduse models; and back-casting approach with long-term benchmarks. We examine four scenarios: business-as-usual (BAU), development first (DEVF), carbon neutrality (CNT) and synchronous (SYNCH). Our synchronous scenario pathway reduces the crude oil and natural gas imports by 68% for the year 2050 compared to 2012 in the BAU scenario, leading to foreign exchange saving of 5.8 trillion US$ during 2013–2050. The envisioned transitions necessitate formulation of strategic policies which provide equitable access of transportation to all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]