Millennial Asia

Technological innovations are positively associated with firms’ market performance. This study aims to examine the impact of product and process innovation on the market power of 168 Indian pharmaceutical firms during 2000–2013. We generate product and process patent stock to capture firm-level innovation activities. Findings of this study suggest that both product and process innovation positively influence firms’ market power. Results also reveal that MNEs enjoy more market power in the Indian pharmaceutical industry. Further, this study also highlights that there is a differential impact of firms’ product group on market power. This study concludes that patenting is a positive source of firm performance in the Indian pharmaceutical industry.

This study examines the social media usage of Malaysian millennials in planning their domestic holidays. This study integrated the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and technology acceptance model (TAM) variables by adding electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM), as it is a crucial factor influencing the travel industry nowadays. Data were collected from 301 Malaysians. The results show that e-WOM is the greatest antecedent influencing Malaysian millennials to use social media in planning their domestic holidays. Local tourism organizations such as Tourism Malaysia could gain an understanding of the issue through this study, and the promotion of local tourism through social media could be developed to reach millennials in Malaysia.

Scholarly discourses involving the peripheral regions often look through the binary lenses of ‘identity’ and ‘development’, which are then ascribed as the root causes, leading to the emergence of political movements in these regions. Analogies emanating from such visions entrapped solely on development deficit fall short in dealing with the interplay and intersections of history, geography and politics related to such regions. The analysis concerning the Gorkhaland Movement also seems to be trapped within such an explanatory binary of ‘identity’ and ‘development’. This article attempts to situate the hills of Darjeeling, where the movement is located, into a less discussed framework of geopolitics that not only politicizes the geographies of the Eastern Himalayas but also historicizes the communities and their aspirations as a response to the manoeuvrings by the concerned states. Within such a framework, we shall also discuss how the colonial geopolitics of migration, henceforth, has been succinctly carried forward by the post-colonial state in shaping its notions related to the hills of Darjeeling.

The growing financing requirements coupled with tightening of fiscal purse strings point to the pertinence of market-based finance for infrastructure provision and enhancement. For this, the question of the sectoral performance of infrastructure takes centre stage and this becomes the basis for the present study. The study assesses the risk-return and volatility profile of Nifty Infra, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) sectoral index for the 30 biggest infrastructure firms in India vis-à-vis the broader Nifty 50 for the time period 2010–2018. The study employs the standard financial economic analysis methods of capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in mean (M-GARCH) model and finds the sectoral equity performance of infrastructure to be marginally below that of a broadly diversified index. Further, the study analyses the cash flow and leverage characteristics which are imperative factors in medium-term risk-return profile of infrastructure stocks. The disaggregated firm level analysis of 10 select firms reveals that rent-like return does exist for the biggest players in the sector due to past installed capacities, while the subcontracting mechanism percolates to meagre cash flows for smaller players, partly bearing the greenfield risks. This suggests the need for state-induced measures to prop up liquidity in equity trade for infrastructure firms. This would not only enhance the risk-return profile but also mitigate excessive volatility for these heavily leveraged firms.

In the backdrop of liberalized trade of agricultural commodity in post WTO regime, reform measures is reflected in the change of domestic prices vis-à-vis international prices of food articles. Physical availability of food is purposively selected as a food security indicator in this paper due to its conceptual linkages of food price movement and domestic food supply. A declining trend in the per capita availability of food grains in the post reform period suggests a net export of food grains. Government intervention in procurement and distribution of food grains helps in insulating the shock of food prices in post food crisis situation. Empirical evidences also suggest that there exists a bi-directional causality in between relative price and net export, or food grains production, or government procurement of foodgrains. A responsive change in foodgrains production, net imports, foodgrains procurement and change in the government stock is followed by food price shocks.

Altaf Hussain Para. 2019. The Making of Modern Kashmir: Sheikh Abdullah and the Politics of the State. London: Routledge, 457 pp., ₹3,200. ISBN: 9780367322076

Jatinder S. Bedi. 2018. Policy Impacts on Qualitative and Quantitative Aspects of Indian Education Special Emphasis on Punjab. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, Price: €103,99 (₹8,300), pp. 5. ISSN 2198-0012. ISSN 2198-0020 (electronic).