According to the report of India’s Second Administrative Reform Commission, which mentions a zerotolerance approach, the rule of law, increasing institutions’ vitality, responsiveness, and accountability, decentralization, openness, civil service reforms, governance ethics, process reforms, and regular, impartial assessments of governance quality are the fundamental principles for making governance citizen-centric. Regarding the tactics, procedures, instruments, and mechanisms that can effectively make the administration more citizen-centric, the Second Administrative Reform Commission of India has investigated how governance might be made more citizen-centric. Some of these include redesigning procedures to make governance “citizen-centric,” adopting appropriate modern technologies, adopting citizens’ charters, ensuring the right to information, implementing independent service review, establishing grievance redressal systems, and promoting active citizen participation through public-private partnerships. Many state governments passed the Right to Services Act, an excellent way to guarantee citizen-centricity. It takes more than worker behaviour to achieve local governments’ goal of providing people-centric services. It encompasses several additional elements, including the accessibility of institutions and services, the timeliness of services, the availability of service standards and procedures to verify that standards are met, and whether information about services reaches the appropriate demographic. More significantly, the degree to which the decentralized governance system meets the needs of the local community, the degree to which it is answerable to its citizens, the degree of transparency, the degree to which citizens can participate in local governance, etc., all influence how peoplecentric the system is. This paper identifies the organisational components that support successful citizen participation in local government, the behavioural factors that the administration must implement to promote citizen participation in public service delivery, and the advantages of citizen-centric public service delivery. The study’s conclusions showed that the citizens are well-informed about the online system. They expressed great satisfaction with this system. However, they could be happier with the process, as implementing a new system posed several challenges. The study demonstrates the government’s commitment to enhancing public service delivery through cooperative governance, public-private partnerships, and community participation, showcasing successful implementations and best practices.

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This Author has worked with migrant construction workers throughout his long career and has witnessed a variety of problems they face. The outcomes of earlier studies also supported his experience. Hence, after superannuation, he was compelled to study their situation in detail and continued his research on migrant construction workers. Before commencing fieldwork, he conducted observational (Covert and naturalist) research at Labour Chowk, Greater Noida, UP, as a preliminary study. It is felt that there is a need for a systematic sociological analysis of the situation and for its presentation to policymakers. Furthermore, this will serve as an additional input to the research study on migrant construction workers. The problems faced by migrant construction workers in general constitute a 21st-century crisis with social relevance and require the attention of all concerned. The methodology employed is covert and naturalistic observational research. Based on observations, their interpretation, and analysis, the author reached certain conclusions. As this is an informal, disorganised, temporary arrangement, there is no proper infrastructure, such as toilets, drinking water, or a closed shed for protection during the hot summer and on rainy days. There is no guaranteed minimum wage or minimum working hours, and workers are subject to employers’ discretion. Semi-skilled workers, such as painters and masons, have a strong likelihood of selection and skill development, and their skills are in demand. The author also recommends that the current mechanism be formalised as a physical platform to address these problems.

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Households are not just sites of consumption but dynamic systems that constantly manage, reuse and recirculate resources through everyday practices. This study investigates the household activities of rural women through the lens of ‘household circular resource systems’ (HCRS) to demonstrate how the system generates and contributes to environmental sustainability and household resilience and survives in local resource circulation. This study used qualitative methods and collected data through 35 in-depth interviews, participant observation, and household activity mapping from 30 purposively selected rural households in six villages in Pabna and Sirajganj districts. The data were analysed thematically. The findings suggest that the cyclical use of food waste, water, and compostbased nutrients produces interrelated processes. These processes collectively contribute to environmental sustainability and household resilience through continuous resource regeneration, reduced household waste and expenses, and improved food security and water management. Moreover, the results show that the traditional HCRS is maintained through complex interactions among women’s productive family resources, intergenerational ecological knowledge, and unpaid domestic labour. Rural women also perceive the circular system as a culturally embedded family custom. However, the level of circularity varies with the number of family-owned animals and arable land. Changing rural lifestyles, marked by greater reliance on commercial agricultural products and less control over property and livestock, are slowly undermining traditional circular techniques. This study advances sustainability and circular economy scholarship by conceptualising HCRS as a localised socio-ecological framework. It suggests that sustainable rural development policies should include family adaptability by acknowledging regional environmental practices, encouraging small-scale animal production, and giving residents greater access to fertile land to foster sustainability and resilience in rural society.

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The increasing digitisation of personal, financial, and social life has created a new category of assets that survive their owners. In many jurisdictions, and especially in India, widows often become the first persons responsible for managing a deceased spouse’s digital estate, including mobile devices, email accounts, cloud storage, social media profiles, online banking interfaces, cryptocurrency wallets, and monetised digital platforms. However,Indian succession law lacks a comprehensive framework for posthumous access to such assets, leaving surviving spouses to navigate a patchwork of succession statutes, data-protection rules, criminal-liability provisions, and private platform contracts. This article introduces the concept of digital widowhood and examines the legal, technological, and socio-cultural barriers surviving spouses face in accessing and administering a deceased partner’s digital assets. It reviews the existing global and Indian scholarship on digital succession and post-mortem privacy, identifies a specific gap at the intersection of gendered widowhood and digital inheritance that has not previously been named or analysed, and sets out the doctrinal, socio-legal, comparative, and empirical methodology used to test three doctrinal hypotheses and four linked empirical hypotheses regarding the adequacy of the current legal position. The doctrinal analysis examines the Indian Succession Act, 1925; the Hindu Succession Act, 1956; the Information Technology Act, 2000; and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, as well as platform terms of service and emerging judicial developments on informational privacy and personality rights. The comparative analysis draws on statutory and judicial models from the United States, the European Union, Germany, and France to identify adaptable principles of fiduciary access, classification, and consent. The paper argues that the current Indian framework produces economic insecurity, privacy conflicts, and procedural uncertainty for surviving spouses, and that this burden falls disproportionately on them. Disproportionately affects widows because of documented patterns of unequal digital and financial participation within Indian marriages. It proposes a gender -sensitive, classification-based model of digital estate administration that distinguishes economic, relational, and personal digital assets, together with a specified survey-based empirical research design capable of testing the model’s underlying socio-legal claims among widows across multiple personal-law regimes. The analysis and proposed framework are intended to be of comparative interest beyond a single jurisdiction, wherever succession law has yet to catch up with the realities of a digitised estate.

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Underage marriage remains a major issue in India. Despite the legal minimum age of 18 for women’s marriage, such traditions persist. The study examines how patterns have changed over time and how they differ by place and by social or economic status. The focus was on women aged 20-24. The study used data from five rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS). The survey period spans from 1992-93 to 2019-21. In this context, underage marriage refers to a woman’s first marriage occurring before she reached 18. The study examined patterns using descriptive statistics. The study also used binary logistic regression to identify factors linked to marrying before 18. The results show a clear decline. In 1992-93, 61.6 per cent of women reported underage marriage. By 2019-21, the share fell to 22.3 per cent. Still, the decline was not even across India. In 2019-21, the highest rates were seen in West Bengal (41.5%), Tripura (40.3%), Bihar (38.7%), Assam (31.9%) and Jharkhand (31.6%). Rates were higher for rural women than for urban women. Women with no education also showed higher rates. The same was true for women living in poorer households. The share was 28.5 per cent in rural areas and 14.2 per cent in urban areas. Among women with no education, it was 46.0 per cent, while it was 3.0 per cent among those with higher education. In the poorest wealth group, it was 38.3 per cent. In the richest group, it was 7.2 per cent. The regression results matched these patterns. Rural residence raised the odds of underage marriage. Education and household wealth lowered those odds. Overall, the study suggests that national change has not removed big gaps across regions and social groups. Better schooling for girls is important. Stronger support for families’ financial situation also matters. Targeted efforts can help address areas where risk remains high.

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Corruption has infiltrated various sectors in Nigeria, particularly government institutions, thereby hindering its full potential and global standing. This paper examined the state of corruption in Nigeria and proposed solutions by conceptualising the second law of thermodynamics and using secondary data sources. According to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy increases over time in a closed system. This reduces the energy available to do useful work. Entropy stands for corruption in this work, leading to the modification of the law as “Alice’s law of corruption”. Corruption causes extreme deprivation, restricting access to modern information technology, internet connectivity, global digital economies, e-commerce, and quality education. Poverty, opacity, weak accountability mechanisms, the normalisation of corruption, and the ineffective adoption of proven strategies from other countries frequently render Nigeria’s governance environment a closed system. In thermodynamics, for a closed system to become open, the boundary preventing the exchange of matter must be removed so that the system can expel disordered particles, or waste, into the environment, effectively ‘exporting’ its entropy and absorbing useful particles from an outside source which can be used to build structure and repair disorder. This implies that corruption in Nigeria can be eradicated by addressing root causes and repairing damaged infrastructure, public trust, and the economy. We recommended political, psychological, philosophical, educational, social work and legal strategies to combat corruption in Nigeria.

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India has made A.I. adoption and native A.I. innovation a priority. However, rapid adoption and growth without a safety framework can lead to harm. Although standards to measure safety and reduce biasin A.I. have been researched in the West, these recommendations need to be adapted to address India’s digital landscape. This paper aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the practical implementation of A.I. safety measures across a diverse digital landscape. In the paper, we examine various areas where A.I. can cause harm. First, we examine biases that enter code and algorithms. Second, applying Young’s five faces of oppression, we identify different forms of oppression in A.I. Third, we examine the Indian digital landscape to understand why its diversity requires a tailored safety framework and unique guardrails to mitigate bias. The paper concludes by recommending pathways that will enable Indian innovators to create Responsible Artificial Intelligence and applications that will adhere to safety standards while reducing instances of exploitation.

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The institution of priesthood has a central place in the Old Testament. However, its historical development, diversity, and theological significance are often presented through a fragmented or narrow perspective of religious tradition. This article aims to examine the institution’s historical formation, religious functions, and theological significance within the broader context of the ancient Near East and biblical tradition. The paper aims to shed light on the relationships among priests, Levites, Aaronides, and Zadokites, and to investigate how these groups contributed to the organisation of Israelite worship and religious identity. The research is based on a qualitative literature review and textual analysis of the Hebrew Bible, employing philological, historicalcritical, and theological approaches. Biblical texts are examined alongside contemporary scholarly literature to examine the emergence of priestly institutions, the development of sacrificial worship, the centralization of the cult in Jerusalem, the significance of the Tabernacle and the Temple, the rituals of consecration, and the relationship between priesthood, holiness, purity, covenant, justice, and Torah. Particular attention is given to the Day of Atonement, priestly teaching and judicial authority, the covenant of Levi, and the role of the high priest during the Second Temple period. The findings indicate that the Old Testament priesthood did not develop into a fixed or consistent institution but underwent continuous historical and theological transformation in response to changing religious, political, and social conditions. Priestly identity emerged through the interaction of multiple biblical traditions, while its functions extended beyond sacrificial worship to include teaching, legal authority, guardianship of sacred space, and communal leadership. The study further demonstrates that the Christian, and particularly Orthodox, reception of Old Testament priesthood preserves significant theological continuity while reinterpreting its meaning in the light of Christ and the life of the Church. By integrating historical, philological, and theological perspectives, this article contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of priesthood as a dynamic institution that shaped Israel’s religious identity and continues to inform contemporary biblical and theological scholarship.

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