Department of Liberal Arts

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) is a premier institute of science and technology established in 2008. IITH has been consistently ranked in the&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/reports/" rel="noopener noreferrer">top 10 institutes</a>&nbsp;in India for Engineering&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nirfindia.org/2021/EngineeringRanking.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to NIRF</a>&nbsp;making it one of the most coveted schools for science and technology in the country.

IITH offers&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/under-graduate/">undergraduate programs</a>&nbsp;in all the classical engineering disciplines, applied sciences, design, as well as several modern interdisciplinary areas. Students are given a flexibility to explore a broad set of areas, and potentially pursue a minor or double major in a discipline that is not their own. Students who wish to seek a deeper understanding of their own discipline are strongly encouraged to get involved in cutting-edge research with the help of a faculty to mentor them, and earn an Honors in their own field.

The very foundation of IIT Hyderabad is based on&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/research/">research and innovation</a>. The vibrant research culture is evident from the number of patents and publications that IITH produces consistently every year. IITH offers&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/programmes-offered/">graduate programs</a>&nbsp;at both a masters, and a doctoral level, in several diverse areas. There are separate programs for technology, design, science, and liberal arts. The&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/post-graduate/">MTech program</a>&nbsp;is offered in various modes and durations to cater to the ever-growing need of postgraduate level professionals in the country.

IITH encourages and supports&nbsp;<a href="https://iic-iith.netlify.app/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">innovation and entrepreneurship</a>&nbsp;at every stage. The minor program in entrepreneurship is open to all students of IITH, and many of the courses are offered by industrialists who are entrepreneurs themselves. There are various&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/research/centres-incubators/">innovation centers and incubators</a>&nbsp;that promote entrepreneurship and help mentor young innovators. IITH has been very successful in building tie-ups with leading academic institutions around the globe.

IITH enjoys a very special relationship with Japanese universities and industries that goes beyond academic and research collaborations. In fact, some of the iconic buildings in IITH campus will carry the signature of Japanese architecture.

IITH creates a unique holistic ecosystem for education that offers interactive learning, a very flexible academic structure, cutting-edge research, strong industry collaboration, and entrepreneurship. This is an environment which enables students and faculty to translate their dreams into realities.

IIT Hyderabad

This article explores how the practice of craft emerges through different contexts within which it is experienced. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with an artisanal household in the Telangana region of South India, this article focuses on the relationship between the household and the practice of craft in two distinct and interrelated ways. First, it reveals that the history of the practice of craft unfolds through the history of the household and its relational and hierarchical structures. Second, the household and collective performance among kin provide contexts for dialogue, exchange and ‘growth’, and, in the process, generate conditions for ‘critical making’. By looking at narratives of the members of the Danalakota household, the objective of the article is to reconstruct the experience of lived realities of craft and kinship.

World Art

Crafting objects, crafting affinities, crafting selves: narratives of home and craft from Telangana, India

Positive health focuses on enhancing health along with curing illness to bring about well-being. Treatment for physical illness generally involves drug therapy, while the psycho-social aspects, specifically the positive psychology perspectives, are largely ignored; nevertheless, a growing number of investigations are now studying the effects of positive psychology interventions on health outcomes. The objective of this paper is to systematically review positive psychology interventions in chronic physical illness. A literature search through the databases of EBSCO, PubMed and PsycINFO, reference lists of significant papers and grey literature was conducted following four criteria set for this review. The number of studies selected finally that acceded to the criteria was 14. These studies were analysed by focusing on the study characteristics, kinds of intervention and outcomes of positive psychology interventions. Overall findings reveal that different intervention programmes have been devised by combining various exercises, writing is the most commonly used method for administration and positive psychology interventions are considered feasible and acceptable by patients, but findings about their usefulness are inconclusive. Suggestions for future research, clinical practice and application in communities have been provided which may be useful for clinicians, practitioners and caregivers. © 2017, National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India.

World University root node

Fulltext

Psychological Studies

Positive Psychology Interventions for Chronic Physical Illnesses: A Systematic Review

This article examines the determinants of the exchange rate exposure by comparing both manufacturing and service sector firms in India over the period of 2000 to 2013. First, the study finds that service sector firms are more exposed to exchange rate changes than manufacturing firms in India. Second, the results indicate that the market-to-book ratio and export are significant and positively related; however, size is negatively related to the exchange rate exposure of both the manufacturing and service sector firms. These results are robust with the estimation using a trade-weighted exchange rate. © 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

International Trade Journal

Exchange Rate Exposure and its Determinants: Evidence from Indian Firms

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine linkage between exchange rate, stock return and interest rate for India. Design/methodology/approach: Using monthly data from January 2000 to December 2014, this study has scrutinized the linkage between exchange rate, stock return and interest rate using maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT) which is very much appropriate when the variables are discrete in nature. Findings: Our major findings indicate that the empirical relationship between these variables is not significant at lower scales. As we go on higher scales, there is a clear linkage between them, and three markets are associated with each other. Moreover, the direction and type of the relationship depends on the frequency bands, and finally with the help of Granger causality tests, we established a lead/lag relationship between stock price, exchange rate and interest rate. Research limitations/implications: The linkage between stock market, foreign exchange market and money market in case of emerging countries like India is more relevant because negative or positive shocks affecting one market may be transmitted quickly to another through contagious effect. Originality/value: Little attention has been given to examine the link between stock return, exchange rate and interest rate in India. This study adopts a more sophisticated MODWT approach for examining the cross-correlation and causality. © 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited.

Studies in Economics and Finance

The dynamic linkage between exchange rate, stock price and interest rate in India

For many years, the concept of gratitude was not considered worthy of investigation by psychologists since research goals were strongly dominated by the deficit-based approach and gratitude concepts were believed to be derived from common sense, and thus not warranting scientific query. This study, in attempting to understand gratitude themes, explores various events that elicit gratitude among engineering students in India. Thirty-two final year engineering students were introduced to gratitude research, administered gratitude exercises, and asked to provide feedback about the exercises. Nested questions, in the form of three-blessings and benefit finding exercises, were used to identify experiences of students leading to gratitude. Content analysis was applied to identify underlying themes and report them systematically. Four major themes and five minor themes were uncovered. Among these, positive emotions was the most prevalent theme and finance was the least encountered theme. Strategies to improve intervention studies, including restricting the area of investigation to one domain and making exercises interesting, have been suggested. Implications of the research within the socio-cultural context have been discussed with special reference to the complexities in separating the sense of duty and gratitude. Further research will provide us with more insights into the topic, specifically from an Indian socio-cultural perspective. © 2017 Taylor & Francis.

Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment

An exploration of gratitude themes and suggestions for future interventions

The aim of this case study is to explore the perception of the rural people for regular health check-ups. A survey was conducted in 500 households in a village in Telangana in March 2012 to get an overview about the inhabitants’ health and their willingness to go for regular check-ups. Since majority of the respondents reported not visiting doctors or hospitals regularly, the key determinants for avoidance of such health check-ups was examined. The objective was to discover factors that may be addressed in future when healthcare facilities would be made available to these villages. The major determinants for avoidance of regular health check-ups were estimated through a logit model. The health locus of control index was constructed using five questions related to attitude and perception on regular health check-up. The results indicate that demographic factors like gender and age, economic factors such as family income and family health expenditure, distance, cost of availing a doctor and health locus of control are the key determinants for avoiding regular health check-up in rural India. However, due to increasing awareness among the rural population over the years, majority of the respondents are willing to pay a minimal amount of money and ready to use the electronic device which can monitor their health. © 2017 Indian Institute of Health Management Research.

Journal of Health Management

Perception towards Regular Health Check-ups: A Case Study from a Selected Village in Telangana State in India

This chapter analyses how the need to study and critically engage with assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and their significant offshoot commercial gestational surrogacy has marked our decade-long engagement as a women’s health group. It discusses some of the challenges faced in ethnographic work, followed by highlighting findings from research on ARTs. The chapter focuses on feminist moorings and their impact on methodology by looking at our critique of the draft bill on the Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technologies in India, which has provoked future research and questions regarding the role of research and policy advocacy. In seeking to bring together the conversations around and on transnational feminisms, the rhetoric on reproductive technologies has also become a flashpoint. The paradox of ‘stratified reproduction’ began to adversely impact the quest for transnational feminism in methods that found themselves crippled with how to represent both sides of the picture. © 2017 selection and editorial matter, Kalpana Kannabiran and Padmini Swaminathan; individual chapters, the contributors.

Re-Presenting Feminist Methodologies: Interdisciplinary Explorations

Researching assisted conception from a feminist lens

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth in India using annual data from 1980 to 2014. Design/methodology/approach: First, misalignment is measured, which is defined as the deviations of the actual real exchange rate (RER) from its equilibrium level. The equilibrium real exchange rate (ERER) is estimated using the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) model by considering key macroeconomic fundamentals of the determinants of RER. Zivot and Andrews’ unit root with structural break is used to test the stationarity property of data. The impact of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth has been examined using ARDL and variance decomposition techniques. Findings: Our results find an overvaluation of 21the exchange rate till 2000, and thereafter, an undervaluation of the exchange rate prevails in India. Further, the result indicates that an increase in exchange rate misalignment leads to a decrease in economic growth and vice versa. Moreover, a positive misalignment (overvaluation) hurts the economic growth and a negative misalignment (undervaluation) promotes the economic growth. Research limitations/implications: From the policy perspective, the results highlight that India needs to maintain an appropriate exchange rate which can reduce the RER misalignment. It is better for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s intervention to smoothen the fluctuations of the exchange rate to avoid the inefficiency in the allocation of resources. However, to minimize the RER misalignment, the intervention should be conducted only in the short run. Originality/value: The study contributes to the existing literature by estimating the exchange rate misalignment for India and its impact on economic growth. © 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited.

Journal of Financial Economic Policy

Exchange rate misalignment and economic growth in India

This paper examines various factors that hamper the innovation activities in selected Indian manufacturing firms. To achieve this, we collect data from 190 manufacturing firms located in Hyderabad and Bengaluru cities through a primary survey. Our results based on field survey reveal that factors such as uncertain outcomes from the future innovations, cost of innovation, lack of qualified labour, and lack of appropriate source of finance were largely attributed to slow down the innovation activities in Indian firms. Further empirical results based on probit regression convey that the firms entering into export markets are able to overcome the obstacles. This study provides the directions for enhancing innovation by carefully tackling the key obstacles in case of Indian manufacturing sector. Apart from the R&D constraints and lack of skilled labour, financial sources cannot be ignored, which has a greater impact in shaping the national innovation systems. Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.