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Objective: The present study focused on exploring the current level of hearing protection and subsequently determined the prevalence of occupational noise-induced hearing loss among casting and forging industry workers. Background: The casting and forging industry provides employment to a significant portion of the population. Method: The level of hearing protection was assessed through questionnaire survey of 572 workers. Out of these workers, 165 and another control group of 57 participants were assessed by formal audiometry. Audiometric tests were conducted at frequencies of 1.0 KHz to 8.0 KHz. The occurrence of hearing loss was determined on the basis of a hearing threshold level with a low fence of 25 dB. Student's test and ANOVA were used to compare the various groups; a p value <.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: More than 90% of the workers sampled showed significant hearing loss at medium and high frequencies. The analyses revealed a higher prevalence of significant hearing loss among the forging workers compared with the workers associated with the other activities. Conclusions: The workers of the Indian steel industry are highly exposed to occupational noise. The majority of workers are not protected from noise-induced hearing loss. There is a need to provide special ear protectors for workers engaged in forging. A complete hearing protection program, including train-ing, audiometry, job rotation, and the use of hearing protection devices, needs to be introduced.

Purpose
Sustainable development has now been recognised as the pivot around which development activities should revolve. Banking is an important component in the same and adoption of sustainable banking practices by various banking institutions is a strong driver to achieve sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to study the level of adoption of sustainable banking tools and the extent to which banking institutions practice the same in India. In addition, the banking institutions have been ranked and categorised on basis of their sustainable banking performance.


Design/methodology/approach
The proposed framework focuses on the environmental and social conduct of the banks, who address the issues of sustainability in Indian banking sector. As there is a difference in the economic standards of developed and developing countries, the review of literature helps to figure out the gap in specific frameworks for assessing sustainable banking practices in developing countries. Previous researchers have made an attempt to develop a general framework for assessing the sustainable banking efforts of the banking sector. These studies fall short of indicators on the social dimension of sustainability specifically in the context of less developed countries like India, the social dimensions are is equally a major thrust area along with environmental indicators. Content analysis technique has been used to evaluate sustainable banking performance of the banks and Mann–Whitney U test used to determine the differences in sustainable banking performance of the banks in India.


Findings
In Indian banking sector, the adoption of the international sustainability code of conduct is still in its nascent stage. The research indicates that sustainability issues which are of the highest priority for the banks are directly related to their business operations such as financial inclusion, financial literacy and energy efficiency, and banks are more focussed on addressing social dimension of sustainability in banking rather than important dimensions of sustainable banking, namely, environmental management, development of green products and services and sustainability reporting.


Practical implications
The application of the proposed framework reflects the status quo of sustainable banking in India. This study is useful for the banks and all the stakeholders in understanding more about the shortcomings in integrating sustainability issues in banking. Further, the present study also redresses the extant research dearth in the field of sustainable banking in the Indian context.


Originality/value
This is one of the first studies evaluating the sustainable banking performance of the Indian banking sector.

Background. Various factors have been associated with non-compliance with treatment in schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to examine this association using standardised measures. Method. Compliance was determined and socio-demographic and illness variables recorded. Insight, subjective response to medication and relatives' knowledge and attitude about schizophrenia were measured. Results. Non-compliant patients were younger, had shorter durations of illness, had an episodic course of illness, reported side-effects less frequently, made incorrect attributions to current positive symptoms more frequently and had a more negative subjective response to medication. Key relatives of non-compliant patients were more often employed. Conclusions. Patients need to experience for themselves the merits of taking medication before accepting the need to take them long-term. Psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioural interventions need to be targeted at changing attribu tions to current positive symptoms. The presence of a key person in the community is crucial to improve compliance.

Fish is an essential component of the diet of the most populace in Assam and fish farming has been one of the sources of livelihood in rural areas. Assam ranks first in fish production among North-eastern states of India. However, fish production is not sufficient to meet the demand despite having vast aquatic resources in the state. The present study was undertaken to determine the decadal growth of fish production in the state using the compound growth rate. The study also attempted modeling and forecasting of fish production in Assam using Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) methodology. For the present study, time-series data on fish production in Assam from 1980-81 to 2018-19 was obtained from the Directorate of Fisheries, Government of Assam. Data for the period 1980-81 to 2014-15 was utilized to build an ARIMA model and validated through the remaining data from 2015-16 to 2018-19. The best suitable model for the state's fish production was ARIMA (1,1,0) based on the values of the model selection criterion. The actual fish production and forecast values using a fitted model were in close agreement. The out-of-sample forecast values of fish production in the state for the subsequent years 2019-20 to 2022-23 showed an increasing trend from 336.97 to 358.21 thousand metric tonnes. Considering the vast aquatic resources in the state, the study calls for serious attention by policymakers, researchers, and developmental agencies for harnessing the potential of fisheries resources for making the North-east region self-sufficient in fish production as a whole and Assam in particular.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to explore the extent and nature of sustainability disclosure practices of companies from environmentally sensitive industries in India. It further investigates the influence of potential determinants on sustainability information disclosure of the companies. The study analyzed the data of 57 energy and mining companies included in NIFTY500 index at National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) for the period 2016 to 2019. In the present study, environment, social, and governance (ESG) parameters were considered to measure the corporate sustainability disclosure practices. Panel data analysis was conducted to investigate the impact of possible determinants on sustainability reporting. The results indicate that variables, such as firm size, market capitalization, and a standalone sustainability reporting, are positively associated with the sustainability information disclosure of companies. The finding also suggests that policymakers should promote a standalone sustainability reporting based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards and also broaden the existing scope of business responsibility reporting in India. Overall findings should help the policymakers and regulators to assess and advance the disclosure reforms to improve sustainability reporting in India.