With the declaration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the importance of localisation principles and, consequently, the local-level institutions in implementing development policies came to the forefront. India adopted a thematic approach by condensing the seventeen goals into nine themes, to be worked upon by the local administrative units, furthering that each Village Panchayat (constitutionally known as Grama Panchayats) should select a theme in a plan year and strive towards attaining it. For the South Indian state of Kerala, with its good trajectory of decentralised governance, this localisation process of SDGs was rather smooth. In this article, we discuss the case of the best-performing Grama Panchayat (GP) in Kerala, which has identified ‘Village with Self-Sufficient Infrastructure’ as the development theme. Through qualitative research methodology, we examine how the Panchayat included projects specific to this theme in the development plans and how the implementation helped produce effects on multidimensional aspects of SDGs using the SDG Impact Assessment Tool. The case studies of different infrastructure-based projects endorse that with proper planning and implementation of such projects, the lowest tier of administration can significantly contribute to the improvement of development goals. We have delineated full fund utilisation through convergence schemes, community participation, and strong monitoring mechanisms as the factors leading the selected Panchayat to be the champion of the cause. The accomplishment exhibited by the Panchayat by integrating SDGs into the Village Development Plan through the projects on the theme of self-sufficient infrastructure can be well emulated by other local bodies across the world.

It has become commonplace to describe publicly provided infrastructure as being in a sorry state and to advance public-private partnership as a possible remedy. This essay adopts a skeptical but not a cynical posture toward those claims. The paper starts by reviewing the comparative properties of markets and politics within a theory of budgeting where the options are construction and maintenance. This analytical point of departure explains how incongruities between political and market action can favor construction over maintenance. In short, political entities can engage in an implicit form of public debt by reducing maintenance spending to support other budgetary items. This implicit form of public debt does not manifest in higher interest rates but rather manifests in crumbling bridges and other infrastructure due to the transfer of maintenance into other budgetary activities.

This exploratory study aims to identify the main characteristics and relationships between artificial intelligence (AI) and broadband development in Asia and the Pacific. Broadband networks are the foundation and prerequisite for the development of AI. But what types of broadband networks would be conducive are not adequately discussed so far. Furthermore, in addition to broadband networks, other factors, such as income level, broadband quality, and investment, are expected to influence the uptake of AI in the region. The findings are synthesized into a set of policy recommendations at the end of the article, which highlights the need for regional cooperation through an initiative, such as the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway (AP-IS). 

The proposed research work encompasses implications for infrastructure particularly the cybersecurity as an essential in soft infrastructure, and policy making particularly on secure access management of infrastructure governance. In this study, we introduce a novel parameter focusing on the timestamp duration of password entry, enhancing the algorithm titled EPSBalgorithmv01 with seven parameters. The proposed parameter incorporates an analysis of the historical time spent by users entering their passwords, employing ARIMA for processing. To assess the efficacy of the updated algorithm, we developed a simulator and employed a multi-experimental approach. The evaluation utilized a test dataset comprising 617 authentic records from 111 individuals within a selected company spanning from 2017 to 2022. Our findings reveal significant advancements in EPSBalgorithmv01 compared to its predecessor namely EPSBalgorithmv00. While EPSBalgorithmv00 struggled with a recognition rate of 28.00% and a precision of 71.171, EPSBalgorithmv01 exhibited a recognition rate of 17% with a precision of 82.882%. Despite a decrease in recognition rate, EPSBalgorithmv01 demonstrates a notable improvement of approximately 14% over EPSBalgorithmv00.

The detection of urban expansion through digital processing of satellite images provides valuable information for understanding the dynamics of land use change and its spatial relationship with environmental factors. In order to apply or generate effective land-use planning policies, it is essential to have a historical record of the regional distribution of human settlements, an element that is practically non-existent in our country. For this reason, this text aims to determine the urban growth rate during the period 2000–2014 in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, and to identify potential expansion zones from Landsat images. Six Landsat scenes were used for the spatial analysis of the state urban coverage and their relationship with the road influence area was evaluated. Two maps were obtained as cartographic products: one of urban coverage distribution and another of the municipalities with the greatest expansion, whose areas are located in the Valle del Mezquital region. However, Mineral de la Reforma, Tetepango, Tizayuca and Pachuca de Soto stand out for their growth rates during the study period: 183.44%, 102%, 94% and 68.5%, respectively. In total, the state urban area in-creased 72.3 km² from 2000 to 2014 with an average growth rate of 1.8% per year. Such growth was associated with the areas of influence of important road infrastructure, such as the Libramiento Arco Norte in Hidalgo. Therefore, the Mezquital Valley and the Mexico Basin are considered as potential regions for urban expansion in the state.