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The aim of this study was to explore the reasons for preferring home as a birth delivery place and identify the socio-economic and cultural factors influencing the choice of delivery place in rural Bangladesh.

The data for the study come from a community-based cross-sectional study conducted among 464 mothers in a rural sub-district of Bangladesh in 2019. Respondents were selected randomly from the frame listing all mothers with inclusion criteria, using a two-stage cluster sampling design. Data were collected through a face-to-face interview. Both descriptive and inferential statistics and logistic regression models were used for data analysis.

The results indicate a very high rate (58%) of home delivery. About 20% mothers never received ANC visit. Preference for home delivery was high (63%). Mothers with no education, aged 30 and above, multi-parity, low wealth status, lack of knowledge about institutional delivery, no or <4 ANC visits, received no advice about the delivery place, no pregnancy complications, decision about health care, and prior plan for home delivery were identified as significant predictors of home delivery. Cost of services, cultural practices and attitude towards health facility, lack of a female delivery assistant, perceived fear of caesarian section, poor quality of services, and lack of knowledge about maternity services appeared as important barriers for institutional delivery.

Based on primary data from a rural area, this study would help understand reasons and factors affecting home delivery and developing an appropriate strategy for the improvement of institutional delivery and maternity care services in Bangladesh.

This paper aims to confront some of the many facets of academic freedom as a whole, including the shared concerns with Western academia, its relationship to the politics of Arab society and the relevance of these issues within local political domains. It attempts to profile the problems hindering societal progress beyond the seemingly defined truth. While this subject has many facets, this article only examines academic freedom within the scope of knowledge and inquiry derived from the revered text of the Qur'ãn, including its relation to democracy and radicalism. It is an effort to refocus Arab intellectual dialogue on its ailing academia. It also argues for Arab society to reclaim its core culture of Islam as an enabler of learning aside from the Eurocentric perspective of academic freedom.

This paper uses an expository and persuasive format in its novel perspective. This expository form sets out the argument of academic freedom as being indigenous to Arab-Islamic heritage and pursues a persuasive statement for its resolution. This format outlines the main familiar aspects of academic freedom and lays out its components within Arab-Islamic history.

This paper provides insights and arguments supporting its main theory. It suggests that Arabs must judiciously consider what their education will look like and accomplish in the next 100 years, considering the sociopolitical status quo and the chances of changing it. It argues that academic freedom is indigenous to Arab-Islamic early history, academia and knowledge governance. Therefore, Arab academia must not ignore its heritage to examine what hinders education and intellectualism. It concludes with the point that reinstalling a culture of knowledge will create a relevant democracy.

The implications for research, practice and society are vast. Further academic freedom research would redefine terms of processes, change the role of academic leadership, debunk locally dominated politics, introduce learning-first policies, balance inequalities in gender, abolish academic tribalism and move past colonialist ideas and predominance. For researchers, this point of view would open doors for new scholastic approaches.

This paper includes practical implications that stem from an approach that would provoke practical possibilities and call for more academic conversations. Further conversations should explore and debate the gaps in Arab-Islamic knowledge history. The Global South of the Arab World or the Middle East and Northern Africa/Southwest Asia North Africa region could consider drafting a contemporary MENA account of a Magna Charta Libertatis Academicae or a Magna Charta Universitatum that is galvanized by Arab revivable heritage. Moreover, It would be productive if Western universities that operate in the Arab World would also take an active role in denouncing undemocratic practices and not merely operate as commercial enterprises.

Realizing academic freedom in Arab institutions will have a positive spillover effect on Arab society, including thriving and free media, freedom of speech and gender issues. Academic freedom is one of the main elements in structuring free political culture that adhere to the principles of tolerance. Academic freedom is necessary for showing all contesting ideas in a better light and, ultimately, achieving a form of intellectual equipoise.

This paper concerns academic freedom in the Arab-Islamic World. The majority of academic freedom scholarship today assumes a Western democratic context in discussing or even arguing against it. The paper's focus is a novel expansion of that literature.

This paper aims to address procurement, logistics management, inventory control and distribution of perishable items, i.e. vegetables, fruits, flowers and fishes, during the social isolation period of the Covid-19 era to identify conflicting interests among the channel members; present inventory and information sharing scenario; and reveal organizational dispute and existence of redundant, nonessential and corrupted members in the supply chain.

This study uses an exploratory investigation to evaluate the relations among the members of the supply chain of perishable food items. In this context, it is designed to investigate the field, observe the members of the existing supply chain from rural and remote places and capture their interviews to accomplish the objectives.

This study identified that although the supply chain of perishable food items is controlled truly by private parties, from a realistic view, the private–public partnership is essential where the government should play the coordinating role. In this context, continuous interaction, coordination and information sharing among the members to establish an optimum and scalable network and remove any redundant nodal points is a key success factor for managing an efficient supply chain.

Theoretical and managerial implication of this research is enormous. The existence of functional and dysfunctional conflicts in the same supply network and how it can be detrimental to the performance of the members are exposed in this study, which can be an excellent source to be investigated. Practitioners and researchers can gain a greater understanding to identify the root causes of conflicts in the existing structural dynamics, shedding light on organizational interactions, power and group behavior during the Covid-19 era.

From the light of management and inter-organizational conflicts, this is a pioneer study that has detected the redundant channel members, their source of power and how their removal can present an optimum channel with group coherence and synergistic interest.