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The purpose of this paper is to estimate combined exposure factor (CEF) due to impact of different transport-related environmental pollutants, air quality and noise level in Delhi city.

The Estimation of CEF takes into account the potential relative uptake of each pollutant (CO, NO, NO₂, O₃, SO₂, PM10 and PM_2.5) by the boarding and alighting of commuters at Public Transport facility and using motorcycle. With the help of CRRI mobile air pollution monitoring laboratory and previous CRRI reports.

Combined exposure to environmental pollutants is determined based on the taking weighting factor of pollutant stressor. Results shows average stressor for CO, NO, NO₂, SO₂, PM_2.5 and noise were 2.79 mg/m3, 331.83, 210.25, 16.70, 241.3883 µg/m3, and 72.5 dB(A), respectively. Similarly for motorcyclist, results shows average stressor for CO, NO, NO₂, SO₂, PM_2.5 and noise were 5.1 mg/m3, 483, 398, 19.3, 295 µg/m3, and 82.7 dB(A), respectively. The results show higher exposure value for motorcyclist.

Knowledge of exposure factor due to air and noise pollutant for bus commuter in sitting and standing and motorcyclist is not known for Delhi city.

Following the unceasing pressure on companies to adopt sustainable business practices to mitigate climate effect, this study aims to examine corporate governance (CG) attributes and role of activist investors in influencing extensive sustainability practice for firms in the developed and emerging climes.

Using a panel ordered probit regression analysis for 368 companies over 2016 to 2019, the study examined CG attributes that drive extensive corporate sustainability practice. The study addressed endogeneity bias using STATA Extended panel ordered probit regression model with endogenous covariates.

The result showed CG attributes is critical for firms, and activist investors play a critical role in driving extensive sustainability practice. Findings further reveal the extent of adoption is relatively low in the emerging climes but showed sign of improvement over the years examined.

The study focused mainly on larger firms operating in different sectors globally. Hence, findings cannot be generalized for small sized entities.

The study provides an insightful explanation regarding the extensive sustainability practices and the vital role assumed by activist investors.

The increasing number of companies responding to Carbon Disclosure Project and consequent improvement in scores indicates a corporate commitment to ensuring a sustainable future.

This research offers significant insights to the extent discussion on attributes of CG critical for sustainability practice. The findings ascertain useful tools to aid the continued adoption of sound sustainability practices around the globe.

To develop a fuzzy causal model of enterprise flexibility dimensions in a case study of Indian pharmaceutical industry.

The eight dimensions of enterprise flexibility were identified based on literature review. Fermatean fuzzy decision-making trail and evaluation laboratory (FF-DEMATEL) technique is applied to develop the cause-and-effect interrelationship model among various enterprise flexibility dimensions.

The information technology flexibility, supply chain flexibility, technical flexibility and marketing flexibility are found to be causing/influencing other flexibilities and contributing to overall enterprise flexibilities. Therefore, more attention needs to be paid to develop and sustain them for competitive advantage.

Fermatean fuzzy sets offer more flexibility and more accurate handling complex uncertain group decision making. FF-DEMATEL is a more accurate method to develop inter-dependencies and causal model than ISM, TISM. Ratings from the limited number of decision experts (DEs) from few pharmaceutical firms were done. Future study should take bigger sample of firms and more number of DEs to generalize the findings.

The model will help managers in pharmaceutical industry to prioritize the dimensions of enterprise flexibility to achieve agility, responsiveness, resilience and competitive advantage.

To the best knowledge of the authors, causal modeling enterprise flexibility dimensions using FF-DEMATEL has been studied for the first time in a developing economy context.

This study aims to know the present structure and move of the Islamic banks of Pakistan as well as current issues and challenges for Islamic microfinance. However, this is based on perceptions of the Islamic bankers, regulators and micro-entrepreneurs and petty traders, as they are the key players in the credit market.

The study gathered relevant information through conducting field survey. Two questionnaires were designed for the survey. One questionnaire was administered to survey 270 micro-entrepreneurs and petty traders in three major cities of Pakistan. Another survey deals with the perceptions of Islamic bankers. In total, 100 people from middle and top management were surveyed from five full-fledged Islamic banks of Pakistan. The SPSS software, version 16, was used for questionnaire reliability and descriptive analysis to analyse the data.

In general, the study found the strong opinions of the respondents speak in favour of Islamic microfinance under a system of profit and loss sharing. Conversely, the majority of the clients also feel that Islamic banks do not encourage lower-income micro-entrepreneurs. In addition, the study found that Islamic microfinance is constrained by lack of knowledge, experience and professionalism of the supporting staff; however, Islamic bankers have shown great consensus that Islamic banks should offer Islamic microfinance products and instruments to respond to the needs of the poor for poverty alleviation.

The first limitation of the study is the meagre interest of micro-entrepreneurs and petty traders to participate in the survey. The second limitation of this work concerns the extremely busy schedule of top management and administrative impediment to approach and fix an appointment. Despite these limitations, the findings of this study provide insights to Islamic banks in diversifying their products by offering Islamic microfinance to the low-income entrepreneurs but with proper guidelines and policies.

There is a need to educate the community towards the merits of Islamic banking system by developing a good information system using good visuals and professionally presented seminars, banners and arranging regular sessions with the business community. The growth and development of Islamic banking in the country largely depend on its customers’ enhanced knowledge and awareness about its products and services.

It is the responsibility of the community as well as of government to change the mindset of the poor that banks are meant to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of social, economic and political status.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge in the area of Islamic microfinance by examining the perceptions of Islamic bankers and micro-entrepreneurs. This can help Islamic banks of Pakistan to design and formulate new administrative as well as operational procedures to serve the interest of the poor with commitment towards Islamic values.

Computer technology in libraries has revolutionised the concept of rapid and accurate information services. In Pakistan, though, computer technology is new and is being successfully introduced in all types of libraries and information centres. This article reviews the literature on the use of computers in Pakistan’s libraries. The literature includes monographs, journal articles, reports, etc. published inside and outside Pakistan, discussing information technology, specific library applications, the activities of individual libraries and automation education. The need for library automation and the problems faced by Pakistani professionals in this respect are also discussed.

The aim of this study is to provide an insight to international readers into the perspective of doctoral level research in Pakistan. The factors which led to the start of this program and difficulties encountered in this regard at different universities are discussed.

The study is mainly based on review of the literature. Research theses approved at MPhil and PhD level are evaluated. Some information collected from Library and Information Science (LIS) schools through personal communication is also provided.

The problems that did not allow success in the doctoral programs in LIS were: lack of encouragement by seniors in a real sense; low esteem for indigenous PhD degree in the eyes of fellow professionals; little or no impact of early recipients of the degree on profession; and non‐availability of financial assistance to the prospective candidates. Of the findings mention is made of: no fixed criteria for admission; the research topics do not concern the problems; and absence of proper supervision/guidance resulting in poor quality of thesis in most cases. Suggestions include: formation of a high level committee comprising senior library educators under the Higher Education Commission to work out problems and streamline the process; maintenance of close links with library schools in other countries, particularly in the English speaking world, which are interested in global librarianship.

This paper is the only evaluation of postmaster level LIS education in Pakistan. The findings are useful for planners of LIS education at postmaster level in Pakistan as well as in other developing countries.

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of local governments in Pakistan through citizen’s satisfaction with local public service delivery in the context of the 2001 devolution plan.

Multiple-choice models are used to identify various determinants of citizen satisfaction from local governments. Demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the citizens such as age, gender, profession, education level, social status, geographical location and devolution policy (absence or presence of local government) are possible determinants of the model. While, the dependent variable is a satisfaction index constructed through exploratory factor analysis, using information obtained through a questionnaire.

The devolution policy variable is found to be statistically significant, indicating that people’s satisfaction level declined significantly when the devolution plan was rolled back. The impact of demographic and socio-economic variables on citizen satisfaction with local government is also found to be statistically significant in a majority of cases. Results indicate that people living in urban city districts are comparatively more satisfied than inhabitants of rural areas. Heterogeneity in satisfaction is found across different provinces, suggesting the need for institutional and political reforms. Moreover, people from a lower social status are more satisfied, indicating that the devolution process is in the right direction as far as reduction of income disparities is concerned.

The results suggest that there should be more provincial autonomy and national cohesion that will result in better understanding of the needs of federating units keeping the regional affiliation aside. Financial autonomy will give more resources, generate confidence and make the federating unit accountable. A decentralized set up will reduce the dependence of provinces on the center, which will allow the center to concentrate more on the national issues. However, the problem is how to materialize this and execute an efficient decentralization process in Pakistan.

This research is based on primary data collected by UNDP to conduct a social audit of local governments in Pakistan. No other research has been conducted in Pakistan to evaluate the performance of local governments using citizen satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate enablers, barriers and vignettes of South Asian women leaders and possible paths to increase the influence and leadership of women in South Asia.

Navratna, the nine precious gems of ancient Indian literature are used to frame reflections on South Asian women leaders, and the Global Gender Gap Report of 2015 is used to give context to five barriers and five enablers to women’s leadership in the region. Illustrative vignettes of South Asian women in leadership roles are presented. These vignettes have been selected based on a case study approach of South Asian women leaders.

Five enablers that may help empower women towards greater leadership and influence are proposed: involving men in what should change, greater economic participation by women, supportive family, country- and context-specific leadership training, and finally grassroots advocacy, mentoring and role models.

The paper shines new light on women leaders whose sparking excellence in their specific field illuminate paths for others to follow and thus contributes to promoting research on multifaceted women leaders in South-Asia.

Pakistan had never been a place of serious and nuanced debate and contestation of politics of postcolonial critique, that is, the continuity of economic, political, and cultural dependency of newly independent countries (NICs) on ex-colonizers as pointed out by neocolonialism, dependency theory, and postcolonial theory, respectively. Instead, Pakistan is presented by extant liberal academic literature as a “failed nation” and a state dominated by the military and plagued by religious extremism. As opposed to this, through the literary and activists writings of Aziz-ul-Haq, this chapter will try to illustrate how cultural contestation of the nation-building project postindependence from British rule was a lot more complex and interesting in Pakistan. This was so because the nation-building project of Pakistan was, on the one hand, an amalgamation of Indo-Persian, Arab, Indian, and Western colonial and civilizational influences and, on the other hand, entailed suppression of resilient local and national cultures of its constituent nationalities developed over centuries. This was later expressed in ethno-nationalist politics. However, when it came to the politics of the marginalized in the late 1960s, there were important political, theoretical, and literary insights which caused a change in the direction of political practice in Pakistan, which paralleled the politics expressed by writers like Fanon and early Subaltern Studies influenced by the Naxal Movement in India. The contestation and confusion arising from this dialectic also entered Pakistan's literary and cultural sphere. This chapter not only tries to give a different postcolonial critique of the failure of nation-building project in Pakistan but, though at a preliminary level, is an attempt to separate the original postcolonial theory in its radical tradition from contemporary postmodern/poststructuralist postcolonial theory marked with pessimism and resignation.

Consumers’ evaluation of online review helpfulness has been widely examined. The extant literature suggests that the attributes of review content (e.g. review length and extremity) influence review helpfulness. However, review length cannot fully reflect the richness of the review content. Anchoring on information diagnosticity and extremity bias, this study aims to explore the effect of review comprehensiveness on its helpfulness.

Field observations were obtained from 11,812 online restaurant reviews on a popular restaurant review platform. A controlled experiment was conducted to further delineate the effect of review comprehensiveness.

Review comprehensiveness moderates the effects of review length and an extremely negative review on helpfulness. It also confirms that for reviews of the same length, one covering more aspects is perceived by consumers as more helpful.

Different aspects of information in a review can efficiently assist decision-making. The results suggest that review platforms can better design their interface by providing separate areas for different product aspects. The platform can then receive more comprehensive and helpful reviews and increase the diagnosticity of these.

The study enriches the literature by introducing review comprehensiveness and examining the joint effects of review length and comprehensiveness on helpfulness. It also contributes to the literature by indicating how to reduce the effect of review extremity.