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The purpose of this paper is to investigate, firstly, to what extent has Nepal’s bureaucracy become representative in terms of reflecting the country’s demographic composition, and secondly, has the bureaucracy become more responsive to citizens since the implementation of a quota policy in 2007.

This paper relies on factual and perceptual data in analysis. In order to analyze and interpret representative bureaucracy, this paper adopts factual data derived from the secondary sources, especially data generated by the Government of Nepal. Second, the perceptual set of data was collected through two rounds (2008, 2014) of a country-representative survey in Nepal.

The findings suggest that in terms of representativeness, the bureaucracy is still dominated by high-caste Hindus, while other ethnic communities, except the Newars, are utterly under-represented. Surprisingly, Dalits are represented in higher posts as per their percentage in the population, but they are still underrepresented in the civil service in general. Women’s representation has also increased through participation in the civil service, but they still mostly hold junior or non-gazetted posts. Citizens’ evaluations regarding responsiveness and processes of service provision are also mixed.

This paper is a unique attempt to understand the aspects of representativeness and responsiveness in relation to Nepalese Civil Service.

The study compares the socioeconomic development of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to that of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). SAARC was established on December 8, 1985, as a result of former President Ziaur Rahman's efforts to promote the welfare of the people and mutual trust. ASEAN was founded in August 1967 with the goal of accelerating the region's economic growth, social progress, and cultural development while also promoting regional peace and stability. The SAARC countries share problems such as poverty and unemployment. SAARC countries have a GDP per capita four times that of ASEAN. A qualitative analysis based on secondary data pertaining to SAARC and ASEAN reveals that SAARC has not been more successful than ASEAN. National and international conflicts are common within SAARC. SAARC has 22% of the world's population and 3% of the world's economy, and there are enormous opportunities for economic growth and human development.

This study aims to examine the influence of socioeconomic development on inflation in South Asia using the foreign exchange rate and money supply as control variables.

The study uses annual panel data for five South Asian economies, namely, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka over the period 1990–2018, applies cointegrating regression techniques, namely, the panel dynamic ordinary least square (OLS) and fully modified OLS estimators to examine the long-run relations and conducts the Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test to detect the direction of causality among variables.

The cointegrating regression estimations have documented that the socioeconomic development proxied by the human development index (HDI) has no significant impact on inflation. Although economic development represented by gross domestic product (GDP) growth causes inflation, socioeconomic development represented by HDI has no impact on inflation and has demonstrated as a better macroeconomic indicator, and thus creates no inflationary pressure in the economy. The foreign exchange rate has a positive impact on inflation. The broad money supply has the usual positive effect on domestic inflation that endorses the monetarist view about prices. The Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test has confirmed several unidirectional causalities: inflation causes HDI, money supply causes both inflation and HDI and the foreign exchange rate causes HDI.

The study has practical implications for policymakers in South Asia, to improve HDI, particularly GDP per capita, education and health-care facilities to realize continuous socioeconomic development, which will take care of inflation. Moreover, these counties may follow a conservative monetary policy to control inflationary pressure in their economies.

The study is original and claims to be the first to examine the impact of socioeconomic development on inflation. The findings have socioeconomic values regarding controlling inflation in South Asia.

With climate change and environmental degradation being major issues in the world today, it is imperative for governments within a regional setting to collaborate on initiatives, harmonize their policies and develop strategies to counter threats. In South Asia, several attempts have been made to create a common framework for action in implementing synchronized policies. However, both political and technical deterrents have thwarted moves to accommodate priorities and interests of collaborating states. The purpose of this paper is to assess these issues and existing policies/strategies in selected South Asian countries and evaluate integrated plans of action based on collaborative partnerships.

Using a broad exploratory and interpretive approach, this paper evaluates how harmonization of environmental principles and synergies among countries can help reduce the effect of climate change and environmental hazards. Based on a review of ideas and concepts as well as both primary and secondary sources, including official records, legislation, inter-state and regional agreements, evaluation reports, impact studies (social, economic and ecological), and commentaries, it highlights several initiatives and processes geared to creating environmental protection standards and practices for the South Asian region.

Climate change has resulted in devastating impacts on people. It contributed to the proliferation of climate refugees and high incidence of poverty in South Asia. The region faces both political and technical obstacles in developing a sustainable approach to combat climate change. This is exacerbated by non-availability of information as well as reluctance to acknowledge the problem by key actors. The best strategy will be to integrate policies and regulations in the various countries of the region to develop strategic plans. The approach of prevention and protection should replace the existing emphasis on relief and rehabilitation.

The paper provides a critical overview of the climatic and environmental problems encountered in the South Asian region and provides pointers to resolving shared problems through the use of policy instruments for regulating the problems within the gamut of regional environmental governance. It attempts to identify solutions to offset regulatory and institutional barriers in achieving preferred results by emphasizing the need for redesigning regulatory structures and policy approaches for ecological well-being.

COVID-19 has been a major challenge to global governance, highlighting the necessity for stepping up innovative governance. Beginning in 2020, governments have been trying to adjust in dealing with the massive challenges of COVID-19, implying that attention has been diverted from attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to handling the pandemic. COVID-19 poses a genuine threat to economic progress, food safety, health, and educational parity in developing countries. The article examines the pandemic's impact on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through a comparative lens of Bangladesh and the Philippines.

The under-5 mortality rate in Nepal remains high in comparison to neighboring countries and developed nations. The result of this problem on Nepal’s social, economic, political and cultural development makes it an urgent priority requiring the Nepalese Government to address this issue. The purpose of this paper is to find out if Nepal’s high female labor force participation (FLFP), the caste system and no paid maternity leave are contributing factors to under-5 deaths in Nepal.

Data for this study were taken from Nepal’s cross-sectional demographic health survey 2016–2017. The study sample included 5,060 children born to 3,074 mothers in the five years preceding the survey. Data were collected by interviewing respondents via a structured questionnaire selected through stratified random sampling methods.

The study found that the hazard ratio for FLFP, the caste of the mother and paid maternity were 1.145, 1.485 and 0.556, respectively, with a p-value <0.001. Therefore, the risk of death in children under-5 years for a working mother, a Terai caste mother and a mother who did not get paid maternity was 14, 45 and 48 percent, respectively, higher than for non-working mothers, mothers from other castes and mothers who got paid maternity.

This research demonstrated that FLFP, the caste of the mother and paid maternity leave are important factors for determining the risk of death in children under the age of 5.

Every day thousands of academic institutes suspend their classes and students are staying in their home maintaining social distancing due to the fear of COVID-19 pandemic and Nepal is no exception. Realizing these facts, this study aims to explore the factors for the effectiveness of online mode of classes to on-class course-based students and analyzes the perception of faculties and students toward online mode during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is based on exploratory research design, following mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative procedure. To build a rich understanding of the phenomenon, three-stage data collection procedure: preliminary interview, structural survey and validation were used.

This study revealed triplet factors: infrastructure, student and teacher as antecedents of effectiveness of online classes during a pandemic. Technological support, infrastructure availability, faculty and students' perception have a significant relationship for the effectiveness of the online mode of the teaching-learning process. Students faced anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, but a higher willingness to learn reduces the level of anxiety.

This study significantly contributes to the future management of higher education and digs the future path of online and on-class teaching-learning practices.

The adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) is important for sustaining Indian agriculture in the face of climate change. Despite considerable effort by both national and international agricultural organizations to promote CSAPs in India, adoption of these practices is low. This study aims to examine the elements that affect the likelihood and intensity of adoption of multiple CSAPs in Bihar, India.

The probability and intensity of adoption of CSAPs are analyzed using multivariate and ordered probit models, respectively.

The results show significant correlations between multiple CSAPs, indicating that their adoptions are interrelated, providing opportunities to exploit the complementarities. The results confirm that both the probability and intensity of adoption of CSAPs are affected by numerous factors, such as demographic characteristics, farm plot features, access to market, socio-economics, climate risks, access to extension services and training. Farmers who perceive high temperature as the major climate risk factor are more likely to adopt crop diversification and minimum tillage. Farmers are less likely to adopt site-specific nutrient management if faced with short winters; however, they are more likely to adopt minimum tillage in this case. Training on agricultural issues is found to have a positive impact on the likelihood and the intensity of CSAPs adoption.

The major policy recommendations coming from of our results are to strengthen local institutions (public extension services, etc.) and to provide more training on CSAPs.

By applying multivariate and ordered probit models, this paper provides some insights on the long-standing discussions on whether farmers adopt CSAPs in a piecemeal or in a composite way.

To contextualise the contributions in this section, we present some data on growing up in South Asian societies. It is important to consider the fundamental diversity of conditions in which children and youth live. We suggest some theoretical terms that are helpful in this regard and preview the contributions against this background. The studies on which the contributions are based impressively document the striking inequality in this region.

Corruption and dishonesty in the political and bureaucratic realms have impeded the ability of local governments to provide services and social justice in Nepali society. In light of this, the purpose of this research is to answer the key research question: what are the possibilities and limitations of local government in implementing constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to transform local communities?

This study gathered qualitative data from 14 local governments in seven provinces. A total of 56 in-depth interviews were held with elected representatives, political parties, and government officials at both the national and local levels. Both open-ended and open-structured questionnaires were employed for the interviews.

The results indicate that capacity is a major constraint for local governments, which should be addressed to achieve successful local governance, inclusive citizen engagement, and strong technical, administrative and fiscal capabilities. Lack of local autonomy, political conflict and social class differences, external engagement, and conservative hierarchic government bureaucracy are major hurdles to growing capacity.

This paper analyses the capacity of newly restructured local governments through qualitative approach. It attempts to understand to what extent the Nepali local governments are capable in delivering the services at the local level as closest unit of the citizens.