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Growing environmental challenge awareness among consumers is today's business reality that pushes for sustainable product development. Governments, industries, and consumers' attention are significantly moved from traditional products to eco-friendly product development. Green product development is the future for manufacturing businesses' survival in most markets. Green product development is an emerging phenomenon and, unfortunately, lacks theoretical and empirical research regarding effective organizational policies and practices for green product development. This study aims at filling research gaps towards green product development by highlighting green employee aspects influenced by leadership for sustainable business growth. The study hypothesized relations between the green effect of transformational leadership on green product development as an outcome through green behaviour, green climate, and green innovative creativity. Data was collected from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Karachi through a self-administered survey questionnaire. Results revealed significant support for hypothesized relations through the partial least square statistical tool. This study contributes theoretical and empirical advancement in past literature wherein leadership style influences employee behaviour that leads to predict product development from an environmental perspective. Study inferences suggest for visionary green leadership style for sustainable business growth. Limitations of this study regarding other variable inclusiveness, sampling, and geography are potential extensions for further scholarly investigation.

Plastic has been a very useful material which is very cheap, easy to carry and is resilient to biodegradation. That is why plastic has been used, sometimes reused, and overused due to the reasons mentioned above. As a result, landfills and oceans are full of plastic. But if we consider all the negative health effects, environmental / ecological effects it has in present times, we can understand that it is environmentally very expensive to use plastic. Bangladesh is a relatively young country with dense population and limited resource. Proper management of plastic remains an issue with the country. Considering these, this chapter focuses on how plastic is used, how it is treated as waste and what can be possible solutions in reducing the amount of plastic in Bangladesh.

Purpose: The concept of sustainability in the livelihood of rural people is the central point for the discussion for policymakers. Different policies for poverty reduction, developing economies, and environment management are not capable of using multimedia technology for rural entrepreneurial development.

Need of the Study: The study analyses the impact of multi-media and tries to understand its significance for rural enterprises to contribute to developing entrepreneurship in rural areas to minimise poverty.

Methodology: This research analysed a framework that highlights that multi-media technology offers different ways to earn a sustainable livelihood by enhancing the range of advanced technology, access to information assets, increased social networks, information transfer system, and modernisation of traditional working. A total of 450 rural entrepreneurs were contacted to collect the data from 6 different divisions of Haryana through a questionnaire on 5-point scale. A purposive sampling technique was used for primary data collection.

Findings: The multi-media technology influences rural entrepreneurial development through certain organisational factors, new products and services, improved customer service, generation of employment opportunities over time, increased loyalty, and novel combination of resources within the specific context.

Practical Implications: The study concludes the capabilities may be utilised up to maximum advantages that increase with the use of multi-media technology in the rural framework.

Is India backing out from its commitment to No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons (NWs)? It was a highly debated issue in newspapers and electronic media in August 2019. What triggered this question? In this chapter, I intend to, after explaining significance of NWs in Indian defence strategy and nuclear doctrine that includes Indian commitment to NFU of NWs, answer the two questions raised in reverse order briefly.

One of the central themes of education for all (EFA) for the last two decades has been empowerment through access to education. The history of EFA, however, can at best be termed as checkered. EFA has been relatively successful in drawing world attention and improving access to education. However, the question whether world attention and improved access has resulted in empowerment of people in the developing world still remains unanswered.

In this paper we argue that the limited success of EFA can best be examined and analyzed by paying close attention to tension between demands of the global capital and labor market place and nationalist agendas of the developing (post-colonial) state. These tensions affect the EFA agenda in the developing countries in complex ways.

Taking empirical-educational data from Pakistan we demonstrate that demands of the global capital and the labor market had resulted in an increased attention on institutions and programs of study that cater to the needs of the global capital and labor pool. Access to these institutions is limited to certain strata of the society. On the other hand the mass education program in Pakistan is largely defined by the nationalistic agenda of the post-colonial undemocratic state. A net impact of the interplay of these global and national dynamics is that not only the EFA's aim of mass education is hampered but also more importantly education in its present state is not empowering the recipients.

The current study aims to use bioecological theory to examine the effects of different contextual factors such as husbands’ desire for children, visit by a family planning worker, media messages, and province level on women’s use of contraception in Pakistan. Two cross-sectional data sets were taken from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys (PDHS), conducted in 2006–07 and 2012–13, which included 3,811 and 4,871 currently married, lower socioeconomic status (SES) women aged 15–49 years, respectively. Using logistic regression, the results showed that women’s perception of a husband’s desire for children and visit by family planning workers were significant predictors of women’s use of contraception in both periods (i.e. PDHS 2006–07 and PDHS, 2012–13). Specifically, those women who had a desire for children similar to their husband were more likely to use contraception than those who either were not sure about their husband’s desire for children or whose desire for children was less or more than their husband. Moreover, those women who had at least one visit from a family planning worker during the 12 months prior to the survey were more likely to use contraception than their counterparts.

The primary objective of this research is to conceptualize the integration of enterprise risk management (ERM) as a mechanism to enhance the connection between corporate sustainability (CS) reporting and financial performance. This study suggests that future researchers should validate the proposed conceptualization by conducting a comprehensive content analysis of sustainability reports of Malaysian oil and gas companies. This analysis will allow for the collection of pertinent data regarding CS reporting and ERM implementation. The present study takes a comprehensive approach by integrating legitimacy, stakeholder, and resource-based view (RBV) theories, proposing a robust conceptual design that emphasizes the role of ERM in the connection between CS reporting and firm performance. Drawing on theoretical foundations, this study proposes that CS reporting will have a direct effect on financial performance. Moreover, the integration of ERM serves to strengthen the nexus between CS reporting and financial performance. This study offers valuable insights for stakeholders in the oil and gas sector by providing strategic guidance to enhance financial performance not only through CS reporting but also by implementing ERM. Moreover, the framework proposed in this study is expected to bring tangible and intangible benefits to corporations, including reducing information asymmetry, improving the quality of disclosure, and creating value within the field of CS. The proposed conceptual framework holds great significance as it enhances the applicability of legitimacy, stakeholder, and RBV theories, while also creating value for stakeholders through CS reporting and the adoption of risk management practices to enhance financial performance.

The term ‘fundamentalism’ has come of late into popular usage more than any other. It has been used for various Christian movements. During the twentieth century, the term came to be used in Christian–Protestant circles in an effort to define beliefs that are fundamental to Christian religion. The world that emerged after the Second World War saw the emergence of many former colonial and semi-colonial countries as independent nations. Their development caused ferment among the Muslim countries also. It took the form of a resurgence of fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism. During the last several decades, the Islamic revival that is sweeping from Morocco in the West to Mindanao in the Philippines is considered with some reason as a response to the predatory policies of Western imperialism. This was the reassertion and the response of the Muslims to the challenge of the West. This was the promise of the fundamentalist Muslims: self assertive Islamic nationalism and simplicity of argument in the hope of recapturing the pristine purity and political glory of Islam (Ahmad, 1991). The first Muslim to react against the alien accretions to Islamic society, not necessarily the result of external or foreign influence, was Shah Waliullah (1703–1762) who was almost a contemporary of Abdul Wahab (1703–1787) in Arabia. Both evolved from attempting to purge the Islamic society of foreign accretions to protesting oppression and corruption of Westernisation (Jansen, 1979). The fundamentalism today is different from that of the eighteenth century. It is not of much use to trace historical continuity in the fundamentalist ideology; although, this does not negate some linkages between Islam's past history and modern day fundamentalist movements (Ahmed, 1994).

This chapter explores the colocation of ethnographic and discourse approaches in gender-focused research in comparative and international education. Drawing from the authors’ scholarship in the fields of girls’ education, women’s empowerment, and international education policy and development, this chapter highlights opportunities to interrogate culture in qualitative data through ethnographic and discourse approaches. The chapter concludes with reflection and future directions for these authors and for the field.

Teacher Education has been transforming throughout the world to cater to the emerging needs of quality education. Significant developments have taken place nationally and internationally in political, economic, and cultural fields, influencing education in general and teacher education in particular. The quality of education depends to a great extent on the quality of teachers. And, the quality of teachers depends on the way they are educated and trained. Pakistan has a vast education sector and a huge teaching force but teacher education in the country has not been keeping pace with modernization and development globally. Teacher education curricula, dissemination, evaluation and implementation revolved around traditional models for decades. However, there has been a growing realization to reform the teacher education system lately. The education policy (2009) of Pakistan indicates such realization on the part of the stakeholders. This chapter reports on an important teacher education reform program, which is based on collaboration between the government of Pakistan and the USAID. The Teacher Education Project (TEP), assisted by USAID, is a reform initiative that aimed at restructuring and modernizing teacher education in Pakistan. This chapter aims to provide insights into the objectives, importance and achievements of the project in terms of shaping the future direction of teacher education in Pakistan. It reports on the substantial structural and policy changes that took place in teacher education under the project. This chapter also highlights the possible challenges in the way of useful implementation and sustainability of this and similar education reform initiatives in Pakistan.