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2755 items in total found

Working Papers | 2022

Fishing in muddy waters: Mergers and acquisitions during uncertainty

Balagopal Gopalakrishnan, Joshy Jacob, and Jagriti Srivastava

Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an exogenous shock, we examine whether firms engage in opportunistic mergers and acquisitions during uncertainty. Particularly, we analyze the inorganic growth strategies of acquiring firms faced with disproportionate pandemic-induced opportunities using a cross-country deal-level data. We find a significant increase in the deal completion propensity and deal size, and a decrease in the deal completion time for acquirers that are more amenable to remote working. The effect is more pronounced when both the acquirer and the target are amenable to remote working. Our findings indicate that amenable firms, which were initially reluctant to engage in opportunistic acquisitions, engaged aggressively in the subsequent quarters with an abatement in pandemic-induced uncertainty. The study provides novel insights into the behaviour of acquisitive firms during the pandemic.

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Working Papers | 2022

India's Progressive Environmental Case Law: A Worthy Roadmap for Global Climate Change Litigation

M.P. Ram Mohan, Els Reynaers Kini, and Sriram Prasad

This paper explores how the long-standing tradition of common law countries such as India, which have acknowledged the fundamental right to a healthy and pollution free life for many decades, can assist Judges in other jurisdictions and inform global climate governance. More specifically, many other common law and civil law jurisdictions are faced for the first time with having to interpret and assess whether there is a fundamental right to a healthy and pollution free environment. This question forces them to review whether state inaction on climate change infringes this fundamental right. This paper examines how Indian courts have adjudicated environment and climate litigation. We further scrutinize the classification of cases as climate litigation in the Indian context to try and truly unearth Indian jurisprudence on environment and climate protection. The paper also examines the trends observable and the way forward for environment and climate litigation in India. We compare the four human rights based climate litigations before the European Court of Human Rights with Indian jurisprudence to understand transnational climate litigation better.

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Working Papers | 2022

Effects of Climatic Variations on Child Morbidity in Bundelkhand Region of India: A Panel Data Analysis

Vanita Singh, Vidhee Avashia, Manju Sharma Bhati, and Amit Garg

Morbidity and mortality related impacts of climate change are increasingly becoming a public health challenge especially among vulnerable groups. India has made significant progress in reducing its child mortality however there exists huge regional variations. This study focuses on Bundelkhand region, and analyses the association between climatic variables and morbidity in children. Cases reported to district health office from routine surveillance system between 2009 and 2015, and climate data are used in a fixed effects panel data regression model controlling for development indicators. The panel data regression finds that incidence of morbidity in children is significantly associated with temperature and rainfall. The significance of development indicators in reducing morbidity incidence is suggestive of the critical role of inter-sectoral coordination in achieving desired health outcomes

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Working Papers | 2022

Litigating Barbie: Trade Mark Infringement, Parody and Free Speech

M.P. Ram Mohan and Aditya Gupta

In the contemporary marketplace, trade marks are not mere monikers of origin. While often regarded as commercial symbols, trade marks sometimes become part of the commonplace vocabulary and are indelibly linked to expressing ideas and thoughts. In recent years, the dichotomy of expansive protection offered through the trade mark law and use of marks as part of expressive vocabulary has become increasingly controversial. One such trade mark which has amassed immense communicative strength is Mattel Incs Barbie. The mark has assumed an enduring prominence in contemporary language and has assumed the status of a cultural icon. The present study examines the regulation of expressive secondary uses of trade marks by employing Barbie as a case study. Comparatively analysing the treatment of the Barbie mark in India, the USA, and Canada, the authors underline an imperative need to adopt a legislative framework to protect the expressive and artistic secondary use of popular trade marks.

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Working Papers | 2022

Towards an Integrated Framework for Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

Manan Gandhi and Vishal Gupta

The present paper proposes an integrated approach to resolving life's ethical dilemmas. First, it refines the set of fundamental ethical values, which will help discard the confirmed unethical choices and exhaustively contain all the different prospects of acts that can be deemed ethical from different viewpoint. Further, it comprehensively enunciates the different types of ethical dilemmas that could be generated out of the conflict between the elemental values of the set of fundamental ethical values. Finally, it contributes a framework to resolve the dilemma that caters to the different possibilities of conflict generation and exhaustively settles them.

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Working Papers | 2022

Impact of COVID-19 disruptions on the Supply Chain:Insights from India

Apurva Shrey, Avi Dutt, and Debjit Roy

Supply Chains play very important role in driving the economy of the country. COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have disrupted the supply chains of various firms. It has been estimated that the total cost of supply chain disruption due to COVID-19 and geopolitical tensions is around $4 Trillion for US and European firms (Total Cost of Supply Chain Disruption, n.d.). This cost highlights the need to study the impact of COVID-19 on the supply chain function of companies and explore the efforts made by the firms to mitigate the same. The objective of the paper is to examine the disruptions caused by COVID-19 pandemic in value chains of different sectors. It further aims to bridge the gap between the approach taken by the industry practitioners to mitigate the challenges faced by the COVID-19 pandemic and research work carried out by the academicians. The study examines the challenges faced by the industry and suggest opportunity areas where research can support efforts in industry to improve supply chain resilience.

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Working Papers | 2022

Exploring the Role of IoT in Worker Safety and Productivity

Tarini Goyal and Debjit Roy

This paper analyses the role of the Internet of Things in increasing worker safety and productivity as well as improving performance appraisal methods in the factory setup. Analysis of productivity levels has been carried out for workers in a steel plant on the basis of data collected from IoT tags. The study depicts how IoT can allow workers to perform tasks smoothly in their respective areas of expertise, along with a robust system of communication. By preventing accidents and boosting productivity, a win-win situation is created for workers and their families, as well as for factory owners and their clients.

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Working Papers | 2022

Gai Aadharit Unnati (GAU)*: Modernizing Cow based Economy through Application of Advanced Technology

Gaurav Kumar Kedia, Amit Garg, Pradeep Kumar Mishra, Nishant Krishna, and Aprajita Mishra

The cow, in the Indian context, has been the backbone of our agricultural economy since the early age of human civilization. Our agriculture-based economy thrived alongside cow welfare; thanks to a bounty of natural gifts such as dairy products, manure, crops, vegetables, fruits, and medicinal and natural products derived from cow dung and urine. Mahatma Gandhi even talked about the importance of cow by saying Mother cow is in many ways better than the mother who gave us birth. Unfortunately, due to several economic constraints, cow owners are bound to leave the non-milching cows when they become non-productive. Such stray cattle are forced to survive on the garbage and suffer from fatal health problems. The recent ban on illegal slaughterhouses by the government (although rightly so), while beneficial for the cattle, has further complicated the situation. These stray cattle cause crop damage in villages and become victims of several injuries and casualties via accidents. There are already five million stray cattle officially on the streets of India, and with the ban on slaughterhouses, the numbers are only going to go further up. This is an alarming stage to analyse and tackle this problem in a systematic manner. In order to conquer this problem, it has been observed that Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based model incorporation can provide a solution by integrating stray cows in a circular economy. Donors could provide support to cows through a sustainable AI-based business model that is created in this paper. It provides donors to track their donations in real-time while also caring for cows (Gau Seva). Economical optimization of stray cow by-products: cow dung derivatives like cakes, compost, briquettes, incense sticks, etc., and cow dung as such along with urine can be sold to the biogas bio fertiliser generation plants for further economic benefits. The real-world application of the model also demonstrates how a community biogas plant can help sustainable energy transitions for our villages and even the cities to become self-reliant and lower their dependency on LPG, which can save millions of dollars per year for the government through lower oil imports for LPG generation. In the long run, the proposed model relies more on internal revenue generation and phasing out the donation part to enable the GAU-based sustainability model for an economy.

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Working Papers | 2022

Bilevel Optimization: Applications, Models and Solution Approaches

Sachin Jayaswal and Ankur Sinha

Bilevel optimization is a difficult class of optimization problems, which contain an inner optimization problem as a constraint to an outer optimization problem. Such optimization problems are commonly referred to as Stackelberg games in the area of game theory, where a hierarchical interaction between a leader and a follower is modeled. This chapter presents several examples of bilevel optimization problems arising in various contexts, e.g., the product line selection problem and the shortest path interdiction problem. Depending on the context of the problem, the leader and the follower may have the same objective function but with conflicting objectives (max-min in the shortest path interdiction), or may have different objective functions (as in the product line selection problem). Under this hierarchical setting, the leader tries to optimize its own decision by taking into account the rational response of the follower. A bilevel optimization problem is NP-hard even in the simplest case in which the problems of the leader and the follower are both simple linear programs. This chapter discuses classical solution approaches that are based on the reformulation of the bilevel problem into a single level. It also discusses several alternate single-level reformulations for the application problems considered in this chapter.

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Working Papers | 2022

Mutation of the trademark doctrine: Analysing actionable use to reconcile brand identities with constitutional safeguards (Revised version as on 23.05.2022)

M.P. Ram Mohan and Aditya Gupta

Trademarks serve as a storehouse of information, assuring consumers about the quality of a product by ensuring that products bearing the trademark originate from a consistent source. The trademark doctrine has accommodated this position as its underlying thesis for several decades, and consumer confusion has served as a touchstone for trademark liability. However, given the configurations of the modern marketplace, trademarks transcend their role as source-identifiers and are framed in the language of relationships rather than transactions. With continuous and consistent use, trademarks can come to signify opulence, luxury, dependability and become cultural icons. The modern trademark doctrine must accommodate these realities of the marketplace while, at the same time, accommodating the flourishing exchange of expressive uses through unauthorized use of trademarks. This push-and-pull has resulted in complete obliteration of what were already obscure boundaries between the expressive and marketing spheres of trademark law. Drawing from the American, English, and European trademark jurisprudence, the present study examines the normative foundations of the modern trademark doctrine. These foundations are then extrapolated to Indian trademark law to create a workable limitation of mutating trademark doctrine through the actionable use requirement.

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