Background: India’s rich educational heritage dates to ancient times, with popular institutions like Nalanda, Takshashila, and Banarasi-Kasi flourishing as early as the 6th century BC, which offered diverse courses spanning medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and more. Invasions by the Mughals and British during the 12th to 18th centuries disrupted India’s traditional education systems. Post-independence, India faced the challenge of transitioning from ancient to modern education. Remarkably, the country managed to preserve its popular traditional education through a strategic change management approach by the educational institutions. The Government of India has introduced in the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) in July 2020, to bring transformational reforms in school and higher education systems. In this manuscript, we have summarized the salient features of the NEP 2020 and the preparedness steps to its effective implementation in Indian educational institutions. Method: We have utilised standard databases like PubMed, Science Direct, or Google Scholar, and/or public domains and the NEP 2020 document for this literature survey. Value addition: NEP 2020 aims to ensure access, equity, quality, affordability, and accountability with more flexible curricular structure, and holistic approaches. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact, dynamic planning, and collaboration among public and private institutions, and industries supported the effective implementation of NEP 2020. Notably, the change management approach, which has been a constant throughout India’s educational journey, played a pivotal role in keeping pace with technological advancements and fostering growth in the higher education system in India.

North Korea has been isolated from the international community because of high-intensity sanctions. Nonetheless, research on North Korea should continue so that we are prepared not for contingencies that may occur because of sudden political changes in that country, as occurred after the unification of Germany and dissolution of the Soviet Union, and also to cope with future risks and threats wisely. This study conducted a quantitative survey regarding “inter-Korean cooperation in science and technology,” targeting experts at the Korean government-funded research institutes. As a qualitative survey, focus group interviews (FGI) were conducted to gain insights into the possibilities, considerations, and procedures for inter-Korean cooperation in science and technology. This study is the first to conduct quantitative research on inter-Korean exchange and cooperation in science and technology and shows significant statistical results.

This study examines the economic feasibility of the environment-friendly farmland use policy to improve water quality. Conventional highland farming, polluting the Han River basin in South Korea, can be converted into environment-friendly farming through land acquisition or application of pesticide-free or organic farming practices. We estimate the welfare measures of improvement in water quality and the costs of policy implementation for economic analysis. To estimate the economic benefit of improvement in water quality experienced by the residents residing in mid-and-downstream areas of the Han River, the choice experiment was employed with a pivot-style experimental design approach. In the empirical analysis, we converted the household perception for water quality grades into scientific water quality measures using Water Quality Standard to estimate the value of changes in water quality. To analyze the costs required to convert conventional highland farmlands into environment-friendly farmlands, we estimated the relevant cost of land acquisition and the subsidy necessary for farm income loss for organic agricultural practice. We find that the agri-environmental policy is economically viable, which suggests that converting conventional highland farming into environment-friendly farming would make the improvement in water quality visible.

The recent coronavirus-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for a global digitally enabled healthcare advancement infrastructure to ease e-coverage in the future and reduce human losses, facilitating access to high-quality and cost-effective health solutions. As the concept of a virtual healthcare system is still premature, it would have required noteworthy speculation in technologies and an overhaul of most of the current classical healthcare infrastructure, policies, and systems around the globe. Aims and objectives: This study aims to create a viable autonomous virtual universal health care system to modify the comfort of health care through emerging digital and communication innovations to fulfil consumer needs. Methodology: This study falls under the fact-finding category, which encompasses an exploratory approach with literature examination, limited field visits with informal interviews with local key authorities, and an initial assessment of current circumstances to examine the possibility of application of virtual health coverage. Findings: This study discovered that it is imperative to organize and develop the prospected healthcare system at the country level to be governed by international organizations as speculatively it is functioning in comparative improved healthcare systems across the world, which should be based on special processing of the prospected six types of data with their operationalization to serve multidisciplinary bunches by e-governance and exchanges between distinctive measurements. It requires more dependence on digital infrastructure and learning materials through electronic resources and ordinary techniques. Among other effective components for the development of virtual health coverage, are the applications of digital technology, the middle utility of voice and brief advising framework, complex functionalities, and applications of fifth generations (5Gs) arranged into universal servers attached to GPS-appropriate for sound choice and high-quality measures. Recommendations: This study recommends the construction of a virtual healthcare system by utilizing the proposed Electronic domestic medical adviser, virtual clinics, or “e-health incubators” which will allow individuals to relate through the web rather than the face-to-face institutive fragmented structure systems.

As a key factor in the macroeconomic process, the interaction between public confidence and the commodity market, especially its impact on commodity facilitation returns and macroeconomic linkages, is worth exploring in depth. This study adopts the TVP-SV-VAR model to analyze the causal linkages, dynamic characteristics, and mechanisms of the interaction, and reveals the following core findings: (1) The economic background and information shocks contribute to the variations in the effects and orientations of the economic variables, which highlight the time-varying nature of the economic interactions. (2) Consumer and investor confidence exert heterogeneous influence on the macroeconomy, and their different responses to the negative effect of interest rates and convenience gains are particularly significant in the post-crisis recovery period. (3) In the short-term perspective, the influence of public confidence on monetary policy and inflation exceeds that in the medium and long term, highlighting the immediate sensitivity of individual economic behavior. (4) Since 2015, accommodative monetary policy has accelerated market capital flows, delaying the interaction between confidence indices and inflation, revealing policy time lag effects. (5) Convenience gains exhibit complex time-varying interactions with key economic parameters (interest rates, commodity prices, and inflation), with 2011 and 2014 displaying particular patterns, mapping differences between short- and long-term mechanisms, respectively. The study highlights the central role of consumer and investor confidence in the precise tailoring of macroeconomic policies, providing a scientific basis for policy forecasting and economic regulation, and contributing to economic stability. Meanwhile, the dynamic evolution of consumer confidence deepens market trend foresight, enhances the precision of market participants’ decision-making, and reinforces the resilience and predictability of economic operations.

Demographic policy is one of the key tasks of almost any state at the present time. It correlates with the solution of pressing problems in the economic and social spheres, directly depends on the state of healthcare, education, migration policy and other factors and directly affects the socio-economic development of both individual regions and the country as a whole. Many Russian and foreign researchers believe that demographic indicators very accurately reflect the socio-economic and political situation of the state. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that for the progressive socio-economic development of any country, positive demographic dynamics are necessary. The main sign of the negative demographic situation that has developed in modern Russia and a number of countries, primarily European, is the growing scale of depopulation (population extinction). The purpose of this work was to analyze the existing demographic policy of Russia and compare demographic trends in Russia and other countries. The work uses methods of statistical data analysis, comparison of statistical indicators of fertility, mortality, natural population decline, migration, marriage rates in Russia and the Republic of Srpska, methods of retrospective analysis, research of the institutional environment created by the action of state and national programs “Demography”, “Providing accessible and comfortable housing and public services for citizens of the Russian Federation”, “Strategy of socio-economic development for the period until 2024”, Presidential decrees, etc. Research has shown that despite measures taken to overcome the demographic crisis, Russia’s population continues to decline. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation (Rosstat), as of 1 January 2023, 146.45 million people lived in Russia. By 1 January 2046, according to a Rosstat forecast published in October 2023 the country’s population will decrease to 138.77 million people. To solve demographic problems in the Russian Federation, a national project “Demography” was developed and approved. The government has allocated more than 3 trillion rubles for its implementation. However, it is not possible to completely overcome the negative trend. The authors proposed a number of economic and ideological measures within the framework of agglomeration, migration, and family support policies that can be used within the framework of socio-economic development strategies and national programs aimed at overcoming the demographic crisis.