Educational development plays a vital role for the socio-economic betterment of the weaker sections of the society. Tribes residing in eastern Uttar Pradesh are still very poor in education in spite of the Government’s commitments to improve their backward status through special constitutional provision. Present article analyzes the determinants of school education of Scheduled Tribes with special reference to their socio-economic status as major determinant and explores possible strategies for improvement of different ST communities in Deoria, Ballia, Ghazipur, Varanasi and Sonbhadra district of U.P. Most of the husband or wife (55.9%) in ST families are primary to 10+2 educated or illiterate (31.4%) and, 12.2% of families are still not sending their children to school. Poor socio-economic status due to several contributing factors is the biggest hurdle in getting higher education in tribes. Most of them are either poor (73.4%) or lower middle (24%) socio-economic grade even 96.8% poor in Sonbhadra, most of them earn their livelihood from irregular mostly agriculture labour (83.82%), only 2.4% has farming resulting poor yield of their small inadequate land with traditional manner of farming. Poor percentage of children studying in residential school, school away from easy approach, lack of convenience, less availability of time, poor school facilities and student friendly environment, poor parental attitude and support are other determinants resulting poor educational outcome in children. Poor personal hygiene among children also predisposes them to discrimination in school environment. Corrective measures against identified determinants needs further strengthening to improve overall status of tribes.

Microsoft Excel has been considered as one of the important tools for data analysis. Curt fyre was the author who started with the foundational concepts, including basic calculations in excel. It is widely used by all sectors because of the two very important reasons like the convenience and cost associated with using MS Excel. The current study has been planned to aim to analyze the learners’ perception about data analysis on Microsoft excel. The descriptive study design has drawn a sample of 119 learners constituted of students, doctoral research scholars, academicians, corporate professionals who have attended a one-week training programme on research and data analytics on MS Excel organized by a central university of Assam in October 2020. Primary data has been collected using Google form when journals, scholarly articles, and websites are secondary data collection sources. The analysis has been done on MS Excel and presented through tables and charts. The results indicated that 43.7% of learners had poor practice knowledge on MS Excel before attending the sessions but after attending the session 47.9% of learners had gained good knowledge. 56.3% have not used excel software for analyzing data before but after attending the sessions all the 119 learners have expressed their interest in analyzing data on excel in the future. The study suggested that participants with basic knowledge of MS Excel can be provided with advanced training and that can also be introduced by the respective organizations for quality output in all sectors.

Today, digital technologies such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, internet, web 2.0, and social media are a common good. These devices cater to fulfill the needs of learners of every age, but still the digital world is one with its own set of rules and risks. Therefore, digital literacy has become the prerequisite skills to survive in this digital world. Digital literacy is the ability to understand, use, and interact with technology, media, and digital resources in real-world situations. The importance of digital literacy motivated the researchers to identify the current status of digital literacy of the secondary school students having varied digital education experiences. To conduct the study the sample of 540 secondary school students were selected through multistage sampling. For data collection researchers developed and standardized ‘Digital Literacy Assessment Test’ (DLAT). The assessment was conducted in online mode. The results revealed that majority of the students performed at good level of digital literacy while none of them performed exceptionally well. Also, students with average digital education experiences performed moderate in their digital literacy under four

different dimensions. Moreover, the study revealed interesting outcome in case of digital literacy of different gender and class. The obtained results are further used to provide some useful suggestions for the school to enhance the digital literacy skills of the students.

Students’ academic performance is affected by several factors which include students’ learning skills, parental background, peer influence, teachers’ quality, learning infrastructure among others. The researcher in this research has used four factors – Parents attitude, Student’s attitude towards learning, Peers attitude and Teacher’s attitude. The research was conducted on the secondary school students of Mumbai and Thane. The survey conducted was validated and the study confirmed that none of the variables had significant relationship with the academic achievement of students. The results thus interpreted were that the factors did not necessarily affect the academic achievement of secondary school students. Further, the researcher correlated the factors, it was found that there was significant relationship between the factors where one factor increases the other factor too increased.

The paper seeks to evaluate the functioning of Pt. Sundarlal Sharma Open University, Bilaspur. The study is a part of an ICSSR sponsored project, “State Open Universities (SOUs) in India: An Evaluation”. Descriptive survey method has been used to conduct the study. Including the TOP University administrators, six programme coordinators; four regional directors; 30 study centre coordinators; 51 academic counselors; and 122 learners have been selected purposively as sample of the study. The tools like: Institutional profile for the University and the SCs; interview schedules for the Vice-chancellor, programme coordinators, director of the RCs, coordinators of the SCs, and academic counselors; and questionnaire for the learners have been developed for collecting data. The data have been analysed by using simple statistics like frequencies, percentage, and average scores. The results of the study emphasized that though there is definite growth in learner’s enrollment and revenue generation, the other aspect of providing quality education should not be neglected. The newly established University has completed its ten years, still it needs to understand the concept of distance learning; its philosophy; the organization of the Open University and its functioning at different levels; empowering the faculties, academic counselors, as well as the SCs; theories and models of development of materials (print and electronic); and providing support services to the learners. For this, a large scale interaction is needed with the established system of distance learning like IGNOU. Ultimately, care should be taken to ‘reach the unreached’ which is the slogan of distance education system and the social responsibility of the University should be realized.

Domestic violence has been considered as a general wellbeing and common freedoms issue that principally influences ladies and youngsters around the world. A few nations including India have detailed a huge expansion in abusive behavior at home cases since the COVID-19-incited lockdowns and physical removing measures were executed. Present study aimed to understand the factors aggravating domestic violence among Muslim women in Silchar town and the approaches they adopted to resolve domestic violence issues. Silchar is a town of the state Assam. The qualitative design of the study adopted a case study method to collect data as per objectives. The present study conducted five case studies. Married women having a minimum three years of matrimonial relationship have been considered for the study and they have been selected using snowball sampling technique. Interview guide has been adopted as the primary source of data collection. During the collection of data, the interview as well as observation method was administered. The secondary sources of data used in the study are (i) journals, (ii) reports, (iii) websites and scholarly articles, (iv) research papers. The study found that dowry; interference of relatives; husband’s relation with other women; suspicious attitude of husband; infertility issues are the dominant factors of domestic violence among Muslim women which had effect on physical, mental, emotional health of the victim. Mutual discussion, support from external agencies, availing counselling sessions, consulting doctor, filing cases were some of the approaches adopted by the victims to resolve the issues related to domestic violence. In some cases such approaches yield positive results when some filed cases against the abusers in court.

South China sea is a strategic sub region of the Indo-Pacific which has significant economic and commercial importance. It is bordered by South East Asian countries which makes its location geo strategically significant. There are issues related to the territorial disputes by the stakeholders claiming the territorial sovereignty within the region and throughout the Indo-Pacific. In the recent years china has increased its efforts to assert its territorial claims over the sea by encroaching the Islands or creating new Islands. US claims that sovereignty in the area should be determined by UNCLOS as it is international water. The major obstacle in resolution of the issue is China’s insistence on conducting its diplomacy on a bilateral basis.

Arbitration mechanisms suggested by the International Tribunal for the law of the sea is also rejected by the China. Region’s increased militarisation has made the dispute more difficult to resolve. There is a need to initiate confidence building measures and dispute management mechanism with all the countries involved to prevent further escalation of problem.