The strongest arguments for women's financial inclusion are economic in nature. If half a country's population is un-banked or under banked-meaning they lack access to credit, savings and other financial services-that represents a potentially huge gap in economic growth (Harsha Rodrigues). Today, women are facing discrimination in all walks of life be it social, cultural, economic and political. Although, substantial effort was putted in by government from time to time to end gender discrimination but the ground reality has not changed much even in 21st century. The truth is that achieving gender equality has become an unmet target due to deep rooted patriarchy system in our society. Hitherto, the experience of the Indian people and administrators with SHGs experience with SHGs has been positive. Most of these SHGs are emerging as a promising financial innovation with great potential to reach the poor and marginal in a cost-effective way to bring them to the main fold of the economy. There are many positive spin-offs from this SHG programmes. Percentage points, improvement of status in the family, group and in the society were 93.10, 85.04 and 62.20 respectively in YCB while these figures are 86, 75.02 and 65.43 respectively for VELUGU. The overall score for the social development between YCB and VELUGU was 66.59 and 46.91 percent. For primary data, 180 members from the VELUGU sponsored SHGs and 180 members from YCB sponsored groups are taken up for intensive study. In total, 360 women members are interviewed and data collected.

The word "slum" is often used to describe informal settlements within cities that have inadequate housing and miserable living conditions. They are often overcrowded, with many people crammed into very small living spaces. The slum population enumerated constitutes 5.4 percent of the total population of the country. As per Census of India 2011, Tamil Nadu has the largest number of cities and towns (507) reporting slum population, Andhra Pradesh has the highest proportion (36.1%) of slum population to the total population. Slums in the 189 towns of Maharashtra accounts for 2499948 slum households, which is 17.96 percent of the total slum households of the country. The Government of India started programmes towards inclusive city development with focus on slums, including the provision of basic services and affordable housing to the urban poor people.

The Perform Achieve Trade (PAT) is an innovative, market-based trading scheme announced by the Govt. of India in 2008 under its National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE) in National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) for improving energy efficiency in industries. This scheme that covers energy conversion chain beginning from generation to the end use by industry and is considered as one of the most innovative actions undertaken by India towards Climate Change Mitigation. This paper analyses the PAT scheme using CMIE data. The analysis uses stochastic frontier analysis technique and calculates technical and efficiency and energy efficiency. The paper finds that there is potential of energy efficiency improvement in all the industries. It also tries to measure the impact in all industries under PAT cycle 1 specifically. It also finds that the larger firms are more energy efficient which might be due to economies of scale.

Reproductive health is a fundamental component of an individual's overall health status and a central determinant of quality of life. Health workers are also expected to educate women about reproductive health problems. Reproductive health changes impact human society globally, and therefore, this paper analyses about antenatal check-ups, medicines & nutritional supplements, visits to the doctor for antenatal check-ups. The study selected the lowest child sex ratio mandals from three North Coastal Districts of Andhra Pradesh, majority of the women respondents belongs to backward classes (67.1%) followed by forward caste (17.4%), scheduled caste (12.2%) and scheduled tribe (3.3%) in the study area. About 32 percent of women respondent are illiterate and majority of them in age group of below 3o years. It is observed that the women who go to health centres for antenatal check-up, a whopping 87.3 percent of pregnant women take the health services from qualified doctors. Only 12.7 percent of the pregnant women took health advices from the Nurses or ANM. The distribution of the health centres that the pregnant women choose for their antenatal check-up shows that most prefer the private hospitals. Almost all women respondents have received medicines and nutrition supplements during pregnancy. Across sample, 18.2 percent visited the doctor for the first time during their four months of pregnancy, 6.9 percent during the first two months and remaining 3.6 percent after the four months of the pregnancy. This shows majority of the women consulted the medical people on time to avoid any forms of difficulties during pregnancy. It is observed that 2/3 rd of the women respondents have visited doctor third month after pregnancy. The study suggests that health must be treated as a human right and health care delivery system should be more effective, safe, accessible and affordable.