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The case illustrates the application of the concepts of demand elasticities of an agricultural product with high protein content - pulses. It considers the current situation where a good monsoon has raised hopes for a bumper crop of pulses in India. From a deficit of about 20% met by imports, the county now is looking at attaining self-sufficiency. Public Policy options such as exports, imports or allowing domestic price adjustments or changing the minimum support price (MSP) in this regard are also considered.

The case considers alternative specifications of demand for food in India. Based on theoretical understanding and conceptual clarity, the most appropriate demand function for food in India needs to be identified and its coefficients need to be interpreted for further analytical use.

With the establishment of Competition Commission of India (CCI), Competition law-class actions, especially with regards to abuse of dominance by monopolists, are slowly becoming unhappy realities with both government-owned as well as private companies. This case used Coal India Limited (CIL), a public monolith which was penalized recently by CCI, as a subject of analysis to delve deeper into various conceptual understandings related to public sector functioning, such as public versus private provisioning, natural versus designed monopoly, dominance versus abuse of dominance, corporate governance versus government mandated governance, and finally natural resource allocation.

Pricing of natural gas in India suffers from asymmetry because of the presence of limited suppliers having byzantine contracts. The oligopolistic market combined with price regulation results in welfare losses, and market failure. We argue that for the sake of long-term development of natural gas sector in fast developing economies like India, the long-run marginal cost (LRMC) seems to be the most suitable pricing policy. In the case analysis, we present a theoretical framework of calculating LRMC while acknowledging that the conditions necessary for a ‘first-best world’ rarely exist. We conclude that it is very much possible to gradually move from the existing ad-hoc pricing mechanism to a more robust LRMC regime that takes into account not just the production cost but also a scarcity premium as well as any externalities resulting from the natural-gas fuel cycle. The outcome based on our model compares very well with the one from the Rangarajan Committee's formula that got the government's nod recently for fixing of price of indigenously produced natural gas, to be effective from 01st April 2014.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the difference in students’ preferences on weekly menu of school mid-day meal (MDM) program in Uttar Pradesh, India.

The study is based on primary structured questionnaire survey through personal interviews using multi-stage stratified sampling technique. This comprehensive survey covered 2,400 primary and upper primary students belonging to eight districts of Uttar Pradesh – Allahabad, Balrampur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Hathras, Kanpur Nagar, Mathura, Shahjahanpur and Varanasi. A total of 60 schools have been selected from each district, covering a total of 480 primary and upper primary schools. Simple statistical tools have been used to analyze the surveyed data such as cross-tabulation, percentage distribution and rank analysis. Further, six research hypotheses have been formulated to analyze the difference in school meal menu preferences among the students and χ2-statistics has been used to test the significance level of these hypotheses.

Survey results indicate that more than 90 percent students eat MDM in the school as per the weekly menu. Result of χ2-test indicates that choices on school meal menu among the students differ significantly across weekdays. Rice-pulses or rice-sambar served on Tuesday is reported to be the first preferred food of children given first preference by around 30 percent, followed by kadi-rice or kheer which is served on Wednesday. The results of χ2-tests exhibited a significant difference on weekly menu choices by gender, kitchen types, rural and urban locations and geographical regions. About 27 percent of the students reported that they want to have a change in the menu. When further probed about the kind of changes desired in the menu, puri-vegetables was found to be the most preferred choice of the respondents, beside halwa/kheer and rice with pulses/vegetables/kadi being the next preferred choices.

The present study provides managerial implications to the policy makers and scheme/program implementers for better understanding of the students’ preferences on school MDM weekly menu.

There are several evaluation studies undertaken by various agencies to assess the impact of MDM program on school attendance, retention and nutritional status of children. However, there are limited numbers of studies available, which have measured the students’ preferences on school MDM menu.

The purpose of this paper is to frame collaboration in supply chain as a hierarchical reflective construct.

This study uses data from industries in India to test the hierarchical and structural model. Partial least squares method is used to test the model.

Results show that collaboration is a third‐order, reflective construct. The paper's findings also arrange collaborative activities in terms of its importance for collaboration.

Collaboration is a multi‐facet activity and is a meta‐concept, and therefore this paper improves our understanding on the subject. The performance of supply chain collaboration depends on the execution of various activities, and this paper points out how the various activities are related to the collaboration, the execution of which will drive collaborative ventures towards success.

This paper provides empirical evidence for collaboration as a hierarchical reflective construct. The model is tested by data collected from Industries in India.

Purpose – This chapter discusses an education law recently enacted in India – The Right of Children to Free and Compulsary Education – its implementation plan and potential implications, focusing on the teacher labor force composition and the teacher education system. The Right to Education Act specifies acceptable pupil–teacher ratios, levels of teacher vacancy in the school, qualifications required for teacher appointments, and terms and conditions for teacher hiring, among other things.Methodology – This study draws on government documents and reports to conduct a systematic analysis of existing data and historical trends. It generates an understanding of how this policy shapes the demand for teachers, the quality of the existing system, and its ability to respond to these increased demands.Findings – These policy changes intended to increase equity in teacher distribution may in the near future exacerbate inequities in access to quality teachers and teaching across India. The policy creates important and urgent changes in the Indian teacher labor force, and by extension, it demands changes in the Indian teacher education system. But that system may be unprepared to meet these goals. Therefore, the chapter underscores the need for reform in India's teacher education system, if this policy's mandate to provide equal access to quality education to all Indian children is to be fulfilled.Value – This chapter explains and analyzes a recent, large-scale teacher policy reform in a regionally diverse, developing nation with an urgent need to improve the quality of education received by its children.