Alok Kumar
Biographic Data
| ID | 3583337 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alok Kumar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alok |
| FAMILY NAME | Kumar |
| SIGNATURE | KUMAR A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Government of Uttar Pradesh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4549-1400 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Measuring social group inequalities in household consumption of essential goods
This study examines consumption inequality among India’s social groups, focusing on several food and non-food expenditures, using two rounds of Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) data: 2011–12 and 2022–23. The Gini coefficient and generalised entropy indices are employed to achieve the study’s objectives. Findings align with Sen’s Capability Approach, which emphasises that inequality extends beyond income or wealth gaps to encompass …
Implementing UN SDGs in regional universities of Kazakhstan
Since the approval of the SDGs by the United Nations in 2015, public and private institutions worldwide have been working to meet the global goals identified in the 17 SDGs. This research is based on the analysis of the contribution of universities in Kazakhstan on these challenges to promote sustainability. In particular, drawing on the Strategic Social Responsibility (SSR) framework, this study explores how universities in Kazakhstan develop an…
Comparing performance and integrity of proctored physical, unproctored online, and proctored online MBBS exams
Background The rapid pivot to online assessment during COVID-19 raised concerns about the fairness and psychometric quality of high-stakes medical examinations. This study compared performance and integrity indices across three successive modalities of The University of the West Indies Final MBBS Medicine and Therapeutics written paper.Methods Institutional records for every candidate in 2019 (proctored physical, n = 508), 2020 (un-proctored onli…
Intergenerational Communication in Sports Genre Films
The research study takes a semiotic analysis of the Hindi movie Dangal (2016) to understand the function of dialogue as an audio-visual code in the lives of the most representative main characters, Mahavir Phogat and his daughters in relation to intergenerational communication. The study decodes how the spoken exchanges bring meaning at the thematic depth and bolster the progression of the denotation and connotation. The denotations totally build…
Yoga Philosophy and Aesthetic Experience in Indian Performing Arts
Indian performing arts have been influenced over a long time by yoga philosophy, which highlights harmony of body, mind and consciousness. The study examines how yogic practices are correlated with aesthetic experience in the traditional Indian performance traditions. The paper discusses the role of the principles based on the philosophy of classical yoga in artistic discipline, expressive eloquence, and interaction with the audience. Analysis of…
Ai-Based Semantic Tagging of Modern Art Collections
The proposed research will employ deep learning through multimodality and ontology-based reasoning to generate metadata of a modern art collection using an AI-based semantic tagging system. The system uses Vision Transformers (ViT) and BERT/CLIP encoders to pull out visual and textual embeddings and combine them using a contrastive learning method, and align them with cultural ontologies, like the CIDOC-CRM and the Art and Architecture Thesaurus …
Chasing Ghosts and Imaginary Fears
Attempts to curb dissent through legislative and executive actions do not bode well for the future of democratic institutions
Excess neonatal mortality among private facility births in rural parts of high-mortality states of India
The Leadership of an Ideological Movement
A social movement without organization or leadership can hardly be thought of. The basic premise behind the analysis of leadership is that they are the chief architect of the phenomenon we call social movement and that social movement can never occur in a vacuum. Leadership in a social movement plays a major role in mobilizing the mass base. The individual who performs this task of mobilizing people for action is called the leader. Although we ar…
Evaluating the Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on Consumer Buying Behavior in the Nutraceutical Healthcare Products Market
With so many items and commercials bombarding customers in today's highly competitive market, the need of successful promotional methods has increased. Celebrity endorsement is one of the most well-liked and effective marketing strategies that businesses employ to draw attention, establish their legitimacy as a brand, and influence customer buying decisions. This pattern is also evident in the market for healthcare goods that contain nutraceutica…
Evaluating the Pre-Hypertension and Hypertension with Associated Risk Factors in India
India’s cardiovascular conditions and healthcare systems are significantly impacted by hypertension. This study aims to provide estimates of the prevalence of hypertension, and pre-hypertension, in India. Furthermore, it identifies lifestyle modifications to reduce hypertension in age groups of 45–59 and 60+. This study uses data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India, 2017–2018, which includes information on 31,197 adults (45–59) and 28,567…
Modelling ambient PM 2.5 exposure at an ultra-high resolution and associated health burden in megacity Delhi
Deriving hyperlocal information about fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) is critical for quantifying exposure disparities and managing air quality at neighborhood scales in cities. Delhi is one of the most polluted megacities in the world, where ground-based monitoring was limited before 2017. Here we estimate ambient PM 2.5 exposure at 100 m × 100 m spatial resolution for the period 2002–2019 using the random forest model. The model-predicted dai…
High ambient air pollution erodes the benefits of using clean cooking fuel in preventing low birth weight in India
A large fraction of the population in rural India continues to use biomass fuel for cooking and heating. In-utero exposure to the resulting household air pollution (HAP), is known to increase the risk of low birth weight (LBW). Mitigating HAP, by shifting to clean cooking fuel (CCF), is expected to minimize the risk associated with LBW. However, India also has high levels of ambient air pollution (AAP). Whether exposure to AAP modifies the effect…
Financial market imperfections, informality and government spending multipliers
Women Figures in Fantasy Art
People say that “Never judge a book by its cover,” but the cover of the book invites us towards it. I remember, during my college years, of going to a bookstore, named” IDEA” in New Delhi, and buying an expensive book named “ENCHANTMENT” stories by Doris Vallejo, Illustrated by Boris Vallejo. The thing, that attracted me, was cover of the book. At that point of time, I was not prepared for reading stories, but I bought this book because of its il…
Cardiovascular disease risk assessment in a rural population (>40 years)
Context: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the most common cause of death worldwide, although low- and middle-income countries are affected disproportionately. By 2020, it is estimated that there will be around 25 million deaths from Cardiovascular diseases globally,and out of that 19 million would be from middle- and low-income countries. Aims: The aim of this study was to estimate the 10-year risk of cardiovascular events among adults aged ≥40…
Effects of post Covid-19 lockdown on educational pedagogy
Background: The end of 2019 marked the beginning of the global pandemic COVID-19. With this global issue, all the fields of society became stagnant. The education system is no exception to it. Education sector suffered as students were sent back to homes and schools, colleges and universities were shut down. But steps were taken and the education teaching system was shifted from offline to online mode. This research project examines the education…
New Chronology for Megalithic Burials in Vidarbha (Central India)
Megalithic cultures of central India provide important links between the southern Neolithic-Chalcolithic cultures and the early Historical period (∼500 BC to ∼AD 700) and reveal knowledge of ancient traditions of early inhabitants. Scientific dating of these Megalithic burial sites is a challenging task due to scarcity of dateable material and alterations. Here, we present multiple accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14 C) dates from e…
Scaling up Kangaroo Mother Care in Ethiopia and India
OBJECTIVES: Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), prolonged skin-to-skin care of the low birth weight baby with the mother plus exclusive breastfeeding reduces neonatal mortality. Global KMC coverage is low. This study was conducted to develop and evaluate context-adapted implementation models to achieve improved coverage. DESIGN: This study used mixed-methods applying implementation science to develop an adaptable strategy to improve implementation. Forma…
Missed opportunities for delivering nutrition interventions in first 1000 days of life in India
OBJECTIVES: Existing health and community nutrition systems have the potential to deliver many nutrition interventions. However, the coverage of nutrition interventions across the delivery platforms of these systems has not been uniform. We (1) examined the opportunity gaps between delivery platforms and corresponding nutrition interventions through the continuum of care in India between 2006 and 2016 and and (2) assessed inequalities in these op…
A new chronology based on OSL and radiocarbon dating for the archaeological settlements of Vadnagar (western India) along with magnetic and isotopic imprints of cultural sediments
Child Undernutrition and Convergence of Multisectoral Interventions in India
in India has been formed to synchronize and converge various nutrition-related interventions across ministries of union and state governments under a single umbrella. Given the large variation in number, nature and impact of these interventions, this paper aims to quantify the contribution of each intervention (proxied by relevant covariates) toward reducing child stunting and underweight in India. The interventions are classified under six secto…
Precision-weighted estimates of neonatal, post-neonatal and child mortality for 640 districts in India, National Family Health Survey 2016
BACKGROUND: The conventional indicators of infant and under-five mortality are aggregate deaths occurring in the first year and the first five years, respectively. Monitoring deaths by <1 month (neonatal), 1-11 months (post-neonatal), and 12-59 months (child) can be more informative given various etiological causes that may require different interventions across these three mutually exclusive periods. For optimal resource allocation, it is also n…
Utilization of Integrated Child Development Services in India
The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program launched in India in 1975 is one of the world's largest flagship programs that aims to improve early childhood care and development via a range of healthcare, nutrition and early education services. The key to success of ICDS is in finding solutions to the historical challenges of geographic and socioeconomic inequalities in access to various services under this umbrella scheme. Using birth…
Racial and ethnic differences in depression
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is among the most prevalent disorders in the US that often goes underdiagnosed and untreated. The burden of disability among those untreated is heaviest among untreated minority populations. Recent studies show that among African Americans, those with socioeconomic stress are less likely to report psychological symptoms or remain compliant with initiated treatment. While minority populations are less likely to suff…
Assessing associational strength of 23 correlates of child anthropometric failure
Despite the broad consensus that investments in nutrition-sensitive programmes are required to reduce child undernutrition, in practice empirical studies and interventions tend to focus on few nutrition-specific risk factors in isolation. The 2015-16 National Family Health Survey provides the first opportunity in more than a decade to conduct an up-to-date comprehensive evaluation of the relative importance of various maternal and child health an…
Preference based vs. market based discrimination
Micro-geographic targeting for precision public policy
Teaching science from a world‐cultural view point
(1999). Teaching science from a world‐cultural view point. Science as Culture: Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 357-370
Telling Stories
Characteristics of HIV-infected childbearing women in Barbados
The early age of sexual activity as well as repeated pregnancies, especially from different and older partners, may have contributed significantly to both vertical and horizontal HIV transmission in Barbados. Future studies of HIV incidence and its trend among childbearing women could be important for monitoring the HIV epidemic in this country. Many of the HIV-infected childbearing women in our study were unemployed, sick, and had multiple child…
CD4 cell counts in adults with newly diagnosed HIV infection in Barbados
At the time of HIV diagnosis, over one-half of the adults had an initial CD4 cell count that was consistent with relatively advanced disease. Proportionally more women than men presented at a younger age, and proportionally more women than men presented in the early stages of the disease. These patterns indicate a clear need for enhanced educational efforts regarding the importance of HIV testing for at-risk individuals across Barbados. This test…
Antenatal voluntary counseling and testing for HIV in Barbados
Twenty-nine percent of surveyed women failed to receive antenatal VCT and this is a cause of concern, for both the high coverage and good quality counseling are key to the overall success and cost effectiveness of the VCT program. Fourteen percent of the women surveyed who did not receive VCT were tested for HIV, a situation that is undesirable because some women may be tested without understanding the full implication of this policy, and as a re…
Uptake of health care services and health status of HIV-infected women diagnosed through antenatal HIV screening in Barbados, 1996-2004
Early HIV diagnosis through antenatal VCT is not enough to ensure that women with HIV will get adequate and timely HIV-related health care. These women suffer significant premature mortality, largely related to inadequate follow-up
India's Engagement with Central Asia with focus on India-Uzbekistan Relations
Do Older Investors Make Better Investment Decisions
This paper examines the investment decisions of older individual investors. We find that older and experienced investors are more likely to follow rules of thumb that reflect greater investment knowledge. However, older investors are less effective in applying their investment knowledge and exhibit worse investment skill, especially if they are less educated, earn lower income, and belong to minority racial/ethnic groups. Overall, the adverse eff…
P1-460 Mother migration and immunisation status of children across diverse settings in India
Introduction The geographical, cultural and socio-economic diversity of India implies that coverage of immunisation programmes and uptake varies between rural and urban areas, among different geographical regions and states. It has been seen that mother's migration is an important determinant of child immunisation uptake. This study examines the individual and community level explanatory factors associated with child immunisation differentials be…
Preference based vs. market based discrimination
The Rāga Bhāva in the Sāṁkhya Kārikā
The last foot of the 23rd verse of the Sāṁkhya Kārikā (SK)—‘tāmasam asmāt viparyastam’—is in need of reinterpretation. Prevailing interpretations are generally based on the primary meaning of the verse. In that sense, it is understood as a declaration of the four tāmasika bhāva that are contrary to the sāttvika ones. Taking the primary meaning of the verse is problematic because it contradicts the guṇa-bhāva coherence required by the doctrine of …
Ranjula Bali Swain,The microfinance impact
Notes1. Armendáriz and Morduch, The Economics of Microfinance, 17.2. Seibel, The Role of Microfinance in Rural Microenterprise Development, 13.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAlok KumarAlok Kumar, a PhD scholar at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, specialises in International Political Economics. Besides being associated with a number of studies in this area, including the ones at NABARD, he h…
Anthropometric study of philtrum (face) and other nasal parameters in Nepal
Aim and Objective: The philtrum plays a key role in appearance of upper lip and nostril. Present study aims to determine and compare the philtrum and other nasal parameters of male and female Nepalese, and to provide a comprehensive data for use by anthropologists and medical practitioners.Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study involves 400 medical students aged 17-25 years (200 males and 200 females) at Kathmandu Medical College Nepal…
Racial and ethnic differences in depression
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is among the most prevalent disorders in the US that often goes underdiagnosed and untreated. The burden of disability among those untreated is heaviest among untreated minority populations. Recent studies show that among African Americans, those with socioeconomic stress are less likely to report psychological symptoms or remain compliant with initiated treatment. While minority populations are less likely to suff…
Estimating the burden of child malnutrition across parliamentary constituencies in India
In India, data on key developmental indicators used to formulate policies and interventions are routinely available for the administrative unit of districts but not for the political unit of parliamentary constituencies (PC). Recently, Swaminathan et al. proposed two methodologies to generate PC estimates using randomly displaced GPS locations of the sampling clusters ('direct') and by building a crosswalk between districts and PCs using boundary…
Micro-geographic targeting for precision public policy
Assessing associational strength of 23 correlates of child anthropometric failure
Despite the broad consensus that investments in nutrition-sensitive programmes are required to reduce child undernutrition, in practice empirical studies and interventions tend to focus on few nutrition-specific risk factors in isolation. The 2015-16 National Family Health Survey provides the first opportunity in more than a decade to conduct an up-to-date comprehensive evaluation of the relative importance of various maternal and child health an…
Child Undernutrition and Convergence of Multisectoral Interventions in India
in India has been formed to synchronize and converge various nutrition-related interventions across ministries of union and state governments under a single umbrella. Given the large variation in number, nature and impact of these interventions, this paper aims to quantify the contribution of each intervention (proxied by relevant covariates) toward reducing child stunting and underweight in India. The interventions are classified under six secto…
Precision-weighted estimates of neonatal, post-neonatal and child mortality for 640 districts in India, National Family Health Survey 2016
BACKGROUND: The conventional indicators of infant and under-five mortality are aggregate deaths occurring in the first year and the first five years, respectively. Monitoring deaths by <1 month (neonatal), 1-11 months (post-neonatal), and 12-59 months (child) can be more informative given various etiological causes that may require different interventions across these three mutually exclusive periods. For optimal resource allocation, it is also n…
Utilization of Integrated Child Development Services in India
The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program launched in India in 1975 is one of the world's largest flagship programs that aims to improve early childhood care and development via a range of healthcare, nutrition and early education services. The key to success of ICDS is in finding solutions to the historical challenges of geographic and socioeconomic inequalities in access to various services under this umbrella scheme. Using birth…
Scaling up Kangaroo Mother Care in Ethiopia and India
OBJECTIVES: Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), prolonged skin-to-skin care of the low birth weight baby with the mother plus exclusive breastfeeding reduces neonatal mortality. Global KMC coverage is low. This study was conducted to develop and evaluate context-adapted implementation models to achieve improved coverage. DESIGN: This study used mixed-methods applying implementation science to develop an adaptable strategy to improve implementation. Forma…
Missed opportunities for delivering nutrition interventions in first 1000 days of life in India
OBJECTIVES: Existing health and community nutrition systems have the potential to deliver many nutrition interventions. However, the coverage of nutrition interventions across the delivery platforms of these systems has not been uniform. We (1) examined the opportunity gaps between delivery platforms and corresponding nutrition interventions through the continuum of care in India between 2006 and 2016 and and (2) assessed inequalities in these op…
A new chronology based on OSL and radiocarbon dating for the archaeological settlements of Vadnagar (western India) along with magnetic and isotopic imprints of cultural sediments
Women Figures in Fantasy Art
People say that “Never judge a book by its cover,” but the cover of the book invites us towards it. I remember, during my college years, of going to a bookstore, named” IDEA” in New Delhi, and buying an expensive book named “ENCHANTMENT” stories by Doris Vallejo, Illustrated by Boris Vallejo. The thing, that attracted me, was cover of the book. At that point of time, I was not prepared for reading stories, but I bought this book because of its il…
Cardiovascular disease risk assessment in a rural population (>40 years)
Context: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the most common cause of death worldwide, although low- and middle-income countries are affected disproportionately. By 2020, it is estimated that there will be around 25 million deaths from Cardiovascular diseases globally,and out of that 19 million would be from middle- and low-income countries. Aims: The aim of this study was to estimate the 10-year risk of cardiovascular events among adults aged ≥40…
Medicine (21 works) · Environmental health (15 works) · Population (14 works) · Demography (12 works) · Geography (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Demography (8 works)