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Aspirational district programme was launched by the government of India to uplift the 117 backward districts in the country through rapid development. Ten districts of Odisha were included in this programme which included Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Balangir, Kalahandi, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nuapada and Nabarangpur. Socio-economic variables formed important dimension for identifying the backwardness of districts. Hence, the socio-economic status of people in the 101 blocks in the ten backward districts were analyzed to address the weak points. The socio-economic indicators analyzed were: population density, sex ratio, SC and ST population, total literacy percent, male and female literacy percent, and gender gap in literacy percent and they were compared with the state average. Most of the aspirational districts are located in the southern part of Odisha except Dhenkanal. In the aspirational districts 89.3 percent of the population live in rural areas compared to 83.3 percent for state average. These aspirational districts have high tribal population (39.4 percent) with lower human density (153 per sq km), higher sex ratio (1010), low total literacy (58.1 percent), low female literacy (47.1 percent) and high gender gap in literacy (22.2 percent). The 101 blocks in the aspirational districts of Odisha were also ranked based on these indictors. The study revealed that the socio-economic indicators in the aspirational districts were weak which need focused attention for their improvement.

The relationships between adjustment problems and self-efficacy were investigated in a sample of 80 gifted students who were studying in 7th-10th enrolled at Salt Pioneer Center, using the adjustment problems scale and self-efficacy scale. The results indicated that the gifted students showed mid levels of adjustment problems. In addition, results showed a significant correlation between total scores of adjustment problems and self-efficacy. It showed there are indicated that no differences between self-efficacy and gender, also it is not statistically significant between adjustment problems and variables (gender and class) of the gifted students, but significant difference between interaction class and gender attributed to male and 8th class.

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