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While English is the most commonly used language for market research, surveys and customer feedback in India, it does not reach the subcontinent’s entire population. Therefore, many questionnaires are bilingual, offering the respondent a choice between English and an indigenous Indian language. This, however, presupposes that answers to items are not influenced by people’s language proficiencies and response styles in different languages. This paper aims to examine whether market researchers in India should be careful about nonrandom measurement error caused by language response bias.

English and Kannada questionnaires are administered in a test-retest scenario to 160 respondents in the Indian Tier-II city of Mysore. The data evaluation is organized by dispositional (language proficiency in English and Kannada) and situational influences (language of the questionnaire in English or Kannada); a series of tests to elucidate language response bias is conducted.

While the significance of the two-tailed English-Kannada paired-sample tests is borderline, a more detailed look reveals surprising differences for the dispositional as well as situational linguistic influences. Moreover, the response style peculiarities in the Indian multilingual environment are not always consistent with differences in other international bilingual environments.

High-quality data are central to all empirical research, but situational and dispositional language response bias seems to contaminate questionnaires in the Indian multi-lingual environment. This study highlights the effect and provides Indian market researchers with some first strategies for managing the challenge.

The purpose of this paper is to describe Saraswati, a cross‐lingual Sanskrit Digital Library hosted at Banaras Hindu University. The system aims to assist those who know Sanskrit and at least one Indic script out of Devanagari, Kannada, Telugu and Bengali.

The system is developed with the Unicode standard using PHP as the programming language. The system follows three levels of architecture for search, display, and storage of Sanskrit documents. The system uses the UTF‐8 character representation system and generates on‐the‐fly transliteration from one Indic language script to another.

The system successfully demonstrates transliteration of Sanskrit text from one language to another. Saraswati is also capable of searching a given keyword across different languages and produces the result in the desired language script.

Some languages such as Tamil (not chosen for study) use context dependent consonants, and with the present algorithm they require further refinement.

With Saraswati, people can read Sanskrit documents and also perform a search for documents available in other scripts. The present system is useful for reading cross‐lingual literature. The present study demonstrates successful implementation of Saraswati over the University Intranet.

It is very common among scholars both in India and abroad that they learn Sanskrit with only one Indic script. The present system is helpful for such kind of scholars.

The system is the first of its kind anywhere and will be highly beneficial for scholars.

The study aims at analyzing the perception of teachers and students about online classes. The work tries to explain the opinions of students as regards the impact of online courses, their comfortability in its usag, and the support received from teachers in online classes along with teachers' opinions on efficacy, teaching practice followed and training received for an online class.

The analysis was carried out using the data collected through two separate structured questionnaires for students and teachers in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi District in Karnataka. Data were recorded in SPSS and analyzed by using descriptive statistics.

The study reveals that students are comfortable with online classes and are getting enough support from teachers but they do not believe that online classes will replace traditional classroom teaching. It also finds that teachers are facing difficulties in conducting online classes due to a lack of proper training and development for doing online classes. Technical issues are the major problem for the effectiveness of the online classes.

Most of the colleges think of implementing online classes in their courses. Hence, it becomes essential to obtain the opinions of participants of online classes before applying for it. This study may help colleges to get a general view of online classes among teachers and students.

Internet and new technologies gained importance in all fields including the education sector which gave scope for online classes. In addition to this, the COVID pandemic worldwide has also added to the relevance of online classes. In this light, it is necessary to understand student–teacher perceptions regarding online classes.

The purpose of this paper is to appraise Pai and Chary’s (2016) conceptual framework for measuring patient-perceived hospital service quality (HSQ).

A structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from teaching, public and corporate hospital patients. Several tests were conducted to assess the instrument’s reliability and validity. Pai and Chary’s (2016) nine dimensions for measuring HSQ were examined in this paper.

The tests confirm that Pai and Chary’s (2016) conceptual framework is reliable and valid. The study also establishes that the nine dimensions measure HSQ.

The framework empowers managers to assess service quality in any hospital settings, corporate, public and teaching, using an approach that is superior to the existing HSQ scales.

This paper helps researchers and practitioners to assess HSQ from patient perspectives in any hospital setting.

Many individual and family hardships are associated with poorly understood palliative care needs arising from advanced dementia within India. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of people in India affected by advanced dementia and to shape educational approaches for practitioners and the local community.

Three focus groups with family carers of people (n = 27) with advanced dementia were undertaken with local communities in South India. One focus group was carried out in English and two in the local language (Kannada) and translated to English.

The findings of the focus groups are presented in four themes, conditions of caring, intersecting vulnerabilities, desperate acts of care and awareness of education and training needs. These themes highlight the challenges faced by family carers of people with advanced dementia and describe the potential harm, abuse and poor mental well-being facing both the person with dementia and the family carer as a result of their situation.

There is a need to explore ways to ensure inclusivity and sensitivity in the research process and enable equal participation from all participants.

The findings highlight a lack of support for family carers of people with advanced dementia and demonstrate the need for dementia-specific integrated and palliative care approaches in India.

This paper provides insight into the experiences and challenges facing family caregivers of people living with advanced dementia in India to shape practitioner education in a way that will underpin effective dementia-specific palliation and integrated services.

The article intended to excavate the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) deployment challenges, Critical Success Factors (CSF), tools and techniques, and managerial implications in an Indian healthcare setting.

The article illustrates a case study established using Action Research (AR) approach. Further, the case study is based on the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC) phases of LSS. The performance and service quality of the Endodontics department of a dental college attached to a hospital is enhanced and sustained through the LSS strategy.

The processing time of Root Canal treatment is reduced by determining the root causes for delay and implementing sustainable solutions. The structured deployment of the LSS strategy helped the Endodontics department to reduce the processing time from an average of 116 min–84 min. Thus, the process's sigma level is enhanced from 0.06 to 4.17 and assisted in sustaining the results.

The case study's findings are based on the single AR carried out at an Endodontics department of a dental college hospital based on LSS strategies. Even though this study's results cannot be generalized, the deliverables of the case study can be used to develop the LSS roadmap for the dental colleges to enhance the service quality and safety of the patients.

The article provides step-by-step details for implementing LSS in dental college hospitals with critical analysis based on robust statistical tools and techniques. The case study provides evidence of the adoption of LSS in medical college education and provides the confidence to adopt the same through novice users. The study's findings may persuade the policymakers to add LSS in the medical education curriculum to reinforce safety and reduce errors in the healthcare system.

The Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts incorporates collections which were previously included in the Departments of Printed Books and of Manuscripts. A Department of Oriental Manuscripts was formed out of the latter in 1867, the Oriental printed books being added from the former department in 1892. Prior to these dates, any catalogues which were issued were technically publications of the parent departments. All, however, are included in this list for convenience.

In the digital era, the dynamics of the communication process in classrooms have changed significantly. With the help of computer-mediated communication techniques, especially animation, teachers can deliver a distinct learning experience to students that can be fun, while presenting complex ideas in simpler forms. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of animation in education, in the context of developing Asian countries, using Karnataka, an Indian state, as a study area.

This paper uses the field experimental method to assess animation’s effectiveness in education. Attempts are made to neutralize the influence of extraneous factors, such as psychological conditions, and the socio-economic background of students, while assessing academic performance. To achieve this, a fuzzy-set-theory-based two-sample statistical hypothesis test is used.

Results indicate that animation can be used as an effective tool for communication in pedagogy and, if used properly, can improve students’ academic performance in primary education, even in developing countries such as India.

The paper’s limitations are explored, and point to how future research could use more advanced statistical tools to identify the motivational, behavioral, cognitive and psychological factors influencing students, when animation is used in education, and should perform a comparative analysis of the performance of students in developed and developing countries.

As the current study proves that animation is effective in education, even in developing countries such as India, efforts should be made to convert existing curricula into animated multimedia content. Currently, most government-run schools in India use traditional chalk-and-talk methods for teaching. The use of animated instructional material will help improve the standard of educational communication in classroom, and maintain consistency in delivering the curriculum.

Ecological impact of joint forest management (JFM) in India was assessed using the studies undertaken at national, state and forest division levels. It was found that there are very few studies that have specifically addressed the ecological aspects under JFM. The study noted that there are significant strides made in promoting JFM, but the program still needs to address a lot of inadequacies. Though it is estimated that little over 14 million ha of forests are brought under JFM, covering nearly 50 per cent of the open forests in India, how much of it has developed into good forests is not really known. It also needs to be noted that there are many lacunae in implementation of the program and there are also gaps in policies to promote JFM. The study noted that in four states, i.e. Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal, the recruitment was significant, amounting to 17 per cent of the regenerating individuals. In Karnataka, over 10 per cent of open forest has been brought under JFM, while a lot of wasteland could still be brought under JFM. The JFM plantations are dominated with exotic firewood species and low in timber and non‐timber species, resulting in lower biodiversity. Biomass growth rate was comparatively higher in JFM forests as compared to the national average. Other support activities to JFM indicated that various biomass conservation programs were initiated, installing a substantial number of energy saving and alternate energy devices. However, the study also notes that effectiveness of such support programs is not clearly known in terms of its functioning and biomass saved.

Enormous amount of biomedical wastes (BMW) produced everyday across the world. Management of BMW depends on adherence to protocol. BMW management at generation point, definitely, depends upon the awareness, attitudes and practises of health-care staff, the purpose of this study will assess the awareness, attitude and practise regarding different aspects of BMW.

An observational with appropriate checklists, and a cross-sectional study, involving questionnaires, was conducted during 7-24 January 2016. The existing system of BMW management, funds, resources, etc., knowledge, attitude and practises about BMW were assessed amongst 273 health-care workers in selected public health-care institutes of Karnataka.

Of 273 study participants, majority (54%) of them have not received any training pertaining to BMW. The results showed a poor level of knowledge and awareness of BMW management amongst health-care personnel. Merely, 43% of the participants correctly knew the categorization of BMW and its disposal in proper colour-coded bins/bags. Awareness is very poor amongst the lower age group, male participants, lab-technicians/pharmacists and supporting staff. Doctors were good at theoretical knowledge such as rules, legislation and public-health importance of BMW management than the practical aspects such as categorization and colour-coding. Further, the attitude of health-care staff is favourable about BMW. Immunization for hepatitis-B was very poor amongst waste handlers (43%).

As the awareness and practise regarding BMW management were poor across different health-care staff there is a need to conduct periodic training and regular monitoring with special focus on the proper use of personal protective equipment. Further, precautionary immunization should be provided, especially waste handlers and sanitary workers.