A Study on Non Performing Assets of Public Sector Banks in India with Special Reference to State Bank of Travancore

The reforms in Indian banking sector since 1991 is deliberated mostly in terms of the significant measures that were implemented in order to develop a more vibrant, healthy, stable and efficient banking sector in India. The effect of a highly regulated banking environment on asset quality, productivity and performance of banks necessitated the reform process and resulted the incorporation of prudential norms for income recognition, asset classification and provisioning and capital adequacy norms, in line with international best practices. The improvements in asset quality and a reduction in non-performing assets were the primary objective enunciated in the reform measures. In this context, the present research critically evaluates the trend in movement of nonperforming assets of public sector banks in India during the period 2000-01 to 2011-12, thereby facilitates an evaluation of the effectiveness of NPA management in the post-millennium period. The non-performing assets is not a function of loan/advance alone, but is influenced by other bank performance indicators and also by the macroeconomic variables. In addition to explaining the trend in the movement of NPA, this research also explained the moderating and mediating role of various bank performance and macroeconomic indicators on incidence of NPA

Eduard Wechssler (1869-1949): Im Dienste der deutschen Nation

Der Berliner Professor Eduard Wechssler ist einer der wichtigsten und Vertreter der romanistischen „Kultur- und Wesenskunde“ Frankreichs in der Zeit von 1914 bis 1933. Die vorliegende Untersuchung rekonstruiert seine Biographie und Bibliographie und stellt sie in den politischen, intellektuellengeschichtlichen, bildungspolitischen und disziplingeschichtlichen Zusammenhang der Epoche. Sie fragt außerdem nach den Vorstellungen von Frankreich, die Wechssler verbreitete, nach dem Ziel seiner Bemühungen, das „Wesen des Deutschen und des Franzosen“ zu beschreiben und – unabdingbar – nach seiner tatsächlichen Beziehung zum Nationalsozialismus. Das umfassendste Werk Wechsslers, „Esprit und Geist“ (1927), eine Anleitung für Lehrer und Studenten und wichtigster Ausdruck der „Wesenskunde“, findet besondere Beachtung. Sein deklariertes Hauptziel war es, den Nachbarn und durch ihn wiederum sich selbst besser kennen zu lernen, um den Krieg, wenn auch verspätet, wenigstens auf anderem Niveau, doch noch zu gewinnen. „Esprit und Geist“ dient in dieser Studie als Grundlage für die Beschreibung von Genese und Entwicklung der Ideen Wechsslers durch sein schriftliches Gesamtwerk hindurch. Aufschlussreich sind in diesem Zusammenhang auch die Reaktionen auf dieses Buch, z.B. von Henri Lichtenberger, Félix Bertaux, Victor Klemperer, Benedetto Croce, Hermann Platz, Fritz Schalk u.a. Eine ausführliche Darstellung der „Conférences françaises“, zu denen Wechssler zwischen 1926 und 1934 französische Schriftsteller und Philosophen ans Romanische Seminar der Universität Berlin einlud, um den Studenten und sonstigen Interessierten das „junge Frankreich“ nahe zu bringen, zeigt die Bedeutung dieser Veranstaltung im Rahmen des kulturellen Austausches zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik. Abschließend findet Wechsslers Tätigkeit als Leiter des Instituts für Portugal und Brasilien zwischen 1936 und 1939 Erwähnung, das offiziell die Aufgabe hatte, die kulturellen Beziehungen zwischen Portugal und Brasilien auf der einen und Deutschland auf der anderen Seite zu pflegen.

La proyección de imagen a partir de Soft Power, mediante Nation Branding y Diplomacia Pública en el caso de Japón, durante el periodo 2002 – 2010

En el actual contexto de globalización y con el comienzo de la era de la información, cada vez más Estados han buscado proyectar una imagen favorable con el objetivo de atraer atención y crear una reputación que permitan cumplir objetivos de política exterior y fomentar el desarrollo económico, logrando de esta manera un posicionamiento en el sistema internacional mediante estrategias novedosas, que incluyen elementos tanto diplomáticos, políticos, económicos, como comerciales y culturales. Para Japón, Nation Branding y la diplomacia pública han sido dos de las principales herramientas para lograr este reposicionamiento internacional, resaltando atractivos como las tradiciones culturales, el turismo, los incentivos para negocios, y trabajando en conjunto entre el gobierno nacional, el sector privado y la sociedad civil para crear relaciones entre el país y gobiernos y sociedades a nivel internacional.

Kid Nation y los límites del espectáculo.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

AQA GCSE Performing Arts.

Texto que, además de ayudar al alumno a adquirir los conocimientos de las asignaturas para obtener el General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) de esta especificación , permite una participación activa en los procesos de las artes escénicas. El curso presenta las disciplinas esenciales para la comprensión de las artes escénicas. Se trabaja a través de una serie de resúmenes prácticos y de elaborar los proyectos para el portafolio. Desarrolla el conocimiento y la comprensión de la industria de esta especialidad a nivel local y nacional, los atributos personales, incluyendo la confianza en sí mismo, la resistencia, la perseverancia, la autodisciplina y el compromiso. Proporciona una base sólida para el progreso en las artes escénicas, como son estudios de teatro y temas genéricos, incluyendo la danza y la música. Facilita una base para el trabajo de diseño en conjunto, vestuario y utilería y elementos técnicos como en iluminación y sonido. Presenta una amplia gama de habilidades personales y de organización para el lugar de trabajo.

The development of the nation state : France 1498-1610.

Ofrece una guía práctica para enseñar este tema a los estudiantes del nivel A2 para la especificación OCR. Explica la evolución de Francia durante el Renacimiento y la Reforma y se centra en la creación del estado-nación francés durante este período. Incluye una selección y definición de los temas, conceptos, acontecimientos y lugares considerados más importantes, así como breves biografías de personajes clave y consejos para los exámenes.

A retrospective study assessing the relative clinical value of performing VRA versus ABR on infants between the ages of seven and twelve months

This paper discusses a study to test two methods of hearing screening for infants--visual reinforcement audiometry and auditory brainstem responses.

Embodied social capital and geographic perspectives: performing the habitus

This paper reopens debates of geographic theorizations and conceptualizations of social capital. I argue that human geographers have tended to underplay the analytic value of social capital, by equating the concept with dominant policy interpretations. It is contended that geographers could more explicitly contribute to pervasive critical social science accounts. With this in mind, an embodied perspective of social capital is constructed. This synthesizes Bourdieu's capitals and performative theorizations of identity, to progress the concept of social capital in four key ways. First, this theorization more fully reconnects embodied differences to broader socioeconomic processes. Second, an exploration of how embodied social differences can emerge directly from the political-economy and/or via broader operations of power is facilitated. Third, a path is charted through the endurance of embodied inequalities and the potential for social transformation. Finally, embodied social capital can advance social science conceptualizations of the spatiality of social capital, by illuminating the importance of broader sociospatial contexts and relations to the embodiment of social capital within individuals.

On the use of headline indices to link environmental quality and income at the level of the nation state

This paper deconstructs the relationship between the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) and national income. The ESI attempts to provide a single figure which encapsulates environmental sustainability' for each country included in the analysis, and this allied with a 'league table' format so as to name and shame bad performers, has resulted in widespread reporting within the popular presses of a number of countries. In essence, the higher the value of the ESI then the more 'environmentally sustainable' a country is deemed to be. A logical progression beyond the use of the ESI to publicise environmental sustainability is its use within a more analytical context. Thus an index designed to simplify in order to have an impact on policy is used to try and understand causes of good and bad performance in environmental sustainability. For example the creators of the ESI claim that ESI is related to GDP/capita (adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity) such that the ESI increases linearly with wealth. While this may in a sense be a comforting picture, do the variables within the ESI allow for alternatives to the story, and if they do then what are the repercussions for those producing such indices for broad consumption amongst the policy makers, mangers, the press, etc.? The latter point is especially important given the appetite for such indices amongst non-specialists, and for all their weaknesses the ESI and other such aggregated indices will not go away. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Making 'dirty' nations look clean? The nation state and the problem of selecting and weighting indices as tools for measuring progress towards sustainability

Pressing global environmental problems highlight the need to develop tools to measure progress towards "sustainability." However, some argue that any such attempt inevitably reflects the views of those creating such tools and only produce highly contested notions of "reality." To explore this tension, we critically assesses the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), a well-publicized product of the World Economic Forum that is designed to measure 'sustainability' by ranking nations on league tables based on extensive databases of environmental indicators. By recreating this index, and then using statistical tools (principal components analysis) to test relations between various components of the index, we challenge ways in which countries are ranked in the ESI. Based on this analysis, we suggest (1) that the approach taken to aggregate, interpret and present the ESI creates a misleading impression that Western countries are more sustainable than the developing world; (2) that unaccounted methodological biases allowed the authors of the ESI to over-generalize the relative 'sustainability' of different countries; and, (3) that this has resulted in simplistic conclusions on the relation between economic growth and environmental sustainability. This criticism should not be interpreted as a call for the abandonment of efforts to create standardized comparable data. Instead, this paper proposes that indicator selection and data collection should draw on a range of voices, including local stakeholders as well as international experts. We also propose that aggregating data into final league ranking tables is too prone to error and creates the illusion of absolute and categorical interpretations. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.