University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University or CU) is a collegiate public state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.&nbsp;Within India it is recognized as a &quot;Five-Star University&quot; and accredited &quot;A&quot; Grade by National Assessment and Accreditation Council.

&nbsp;

The University of Calcutta has secured the Fifth position among the Universities of India in the prestigious &quot;Indian University Ranking 2019&quot; list, released by the NIRF of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

&nbsp;

It was established on 24 January 1857, and was one of the first institutions in Asia to be established as a multidisciplinary and Western-style university. Its alumni and faculty include several heads of state, heads of government, social reformers, prominent artists, only academy award winner and Dirac medal winner in India, many Fellows of the Royal Society and five Nobel laureates as of 2019 which is highest in South Asia.

University Of Calcutta

This article focuses on analysing the efficiency of secondary-level government-run hospitals in West Bengal, a medium performer state in terms of health indicators, in India. Two main objectives of this article are (1) to measure the technical efficiency of the same and (2) to identify the factors determining their inefficiency. For the first purpose, output-oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) under variable returns to scale has been used. For the second purpose, we have used two-part regression models, first showing why some hospitals are efficient while others are not and, secondly, what are the factors that determine the relative efficiency of inefficient hospitals. We have used different forms of regression models for both types. The results show that the overall mean efficiency of all hospitals is 0.728, suggesting that on average the hospitals could produce at least 37 per cent more of output with same input volume if they had produced efficiently. The results also reveal that the highest contributor to slack is the group D staff, followed by doctors. It is found that increase in average length of stay, availability of free medicine from the hospital, ratio between doctor and non-doctor staff strength, outpatient bed day and share of emergency admission significantly decrease the efficiency of a hospital, while the ratio of nurses to non-nurses affects it positively. The article concludes with policy suggestions based on the analysis that decrease in average length of stay (ALOS) by better medical intervention and improved quality of care would definitely allow for more patients to be treated, while increase in nursing staff vis-à-vis other staff would also result in better care. Furthermore, as far as availability of medicines is concerned, the policy should not be to reduce access and coverage, but should rather centre round improving the quality of the drugs procured and distributed through the hospitals. The article concludes that the main source of inefficiency in a specialist hospital in a typical developing country is not just resource crunch, but huge gaps in planning and implementation by the central authorities as well as managerial inefficiency of the local hospital establishment. The determinants that play a vital role in increasing efficiency levels also indicate that most of the inefficiencies can be tackled either with long-term planning or by quick intercession by the hospital authority itself. © 2014, Taylor & Francis.

Economics

World University root node

Journal of Asian Public Policy

Measurement and determinants of public hospital efficiency in West Bengal, India

Indian Journal of Human Development

Non-Hospitalisation Care in West Bengal: A Demand-Side Assessment

Retrieved January

Analysing efficiency of government hospitals in West Bengal

Innovation in India: Combining Economic Growth with Inclusive Development

Evolution of Traditional Medical Systems Sector in India

Artha Vijnana

Secondary Hospitals in West Bengal: Health Care Resources and Technological Efficiency

HIV Epidemic is one of the deadliest health problems that has unleashed in the developing countries. Truly a harbinger of the global public health debacle after the globalization process, the disease has called for an unprecedented global response in the form of international aid on one hand and politico-economic anecdotes in pharmaceutical market on the other. This disease and its retort have brought in certain issues in economics like the fund allotment in prevention and cure, prevalence elasticity of private demand for prevention, the access to Anti Retrovial Therapy (ART) to the people living with HIV AIDS, the production and marketing processes of ART drugs in generic forms and above all the inefficiency of health systems in these countries. The paper analyses the global policy matrix to find that in the face of industrial capabilities and global politics, the huge international aid for this disease bypassed the need for care and treatment while concentrating on awareness generation among high risk groups leaving out the general population at large. The Indian policy contour is no different from this trend which neglects the basic principles of economics and medico-social setting of the country. © 2013 Springer India. All rights are reserved.

Development and Sustainability: India in a Global Perspective

HIV epidemic: Global response and India's policy

Traditionally, money-lending institutions such as banks, lent funds only to people who had property, steady earnings, and a credit history. They did not regard the poor as creditworthy, leading to serious bias for the rich to grab all the credit available in the market. Also, the poorest people, with the highest need of credit for almost everything in life (crop cycle, crop failure, regular consumption, health shocks, educational fees, daughter's dowry, health, and bereavement), had to depend solely on the usurious money lenders, and thus they were shackled in the exploitative grids of informal credit market. In the last few decades, however, the concept of banking for the poor has become a reality, thanks to the world famous experience of Bangladesh Gramin Bank. In such programs, loans are small and often paid back in daily, weekly, or monthly installments. The term "microcredit" has come to identify them. The microfinance movement has spread across the globe by an unprecedented effort to reduce poverty. The concept of lending credit to the impoverished has made its way to the public eye, with 2005 being named as the 'Year of Microcredit' by the U.N. and the 2006 Noble Peace Award being given to the father of microfinance, Mohammed Yunus. Yunus is a staunch proponent of socially focused private firms, to the point that he advocates societies should set up separate industries for these areas. With this movement, development and maintaining MFI through Self Help Groups (SHGs) has been identified widely in the policy anvil and India too has stressed on this instrument to reduce poverty as well as to improve the education and health seeking behaviour of the members of such SHGs. © Springer India 2014. All rights are reserved.

Business Management

Microfinance, Risk-taking Behaviour and Rural Livelihood

Synergistic effects of microfinance through SHGs: A study of basic health and primary education indicators

While many studies attempted to evaluate performance of immunization programmes in developing countries by full coverage, there is a growing awareness about the limitations of such evaluation, irrespective of the overall quality of performance. Availability of human resources, equipment, supporting drugs, and training of personnel are considered to be crucial indicators of the quality of immunization programme. Also, maintenance of time schedule has been considered crucial in the context of the quality of immunization. In addition to overall coverage of vaccination, the coverage of immunization given at right time (month-specific) is to be considered with utmost importance. In this paper, District Level Household and Facility Survey-3 (DLHS-3) 2007-2008 data have been used in exploring the quality of immunization in terms of month-specific vaccine coverage and barriers to access in West Bengal, India. In West Bengal, the month-specific coverage stands badly below 20% but the simple non-month-specific coverage is as high as 75%. Among the demand-side factors, birthplace of the child and religion of the household heads came out as significant predictors while, from the supply-side, availability of male health workers and equipment at the subcentres, were the important determinants for month-specific vaccine coverage. Hence, there should be a vigorous attempt to make more focused planning, keeping in mind the nature of the barriers, for improvement of the month-specific coverage in West Bengal.

Fulltext

Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition

Access and barriers to immunization in West Bengal, India: Quality matters

Fructansucrase and fructan produced from Lactobacillus fermentum AKJ15 were isolated from seeds of Kodo ko jaanr, a fermented mild-alcoholic beverage prepared in North East India. The strain was identified by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis and biochemical characterization. The strain displayed maximum fructansucrase activity of 4.3 U/ml (1.02 U/mg) at 28°C at 180 rpm. The enzyme purified by polyethylene glycol-400 gave specific activity of 5 U/mg and showed 90 kDa band on non-denaturing Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate-Poly Acrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). The purified enzyme confirmed the presence of fructan by periodic acid Schiff's staining which showed magenta colour bands with both sucrose and raffinose. The strain produced 10.2 mg/ml fructan in broth under optimized culture conditions. The purified fructansucrase displayed Vmax of 5.42 U/mg and Km of 16.65 mM. The enzyme showed maximum activity at 30°C and at pH 5. The structure of fructan was analysed by 1H and 13C NMR spectra confirming β-(2-1) and β-(2-6) linkages. © 2011 Informa UK, Ltd.

International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition

Purification and characterization of fructan and fructansucrase from Lactobacillus fermentum AKJ15 isolated from Kodo ko jaanr, a fermented beverage from north-eastern Himalayas

Evolution of traditional medical systems sector in India: What has innovation got to do with it?

UNU-MERIT

Determinants of the prevalence of diarrhoea in adolescents attending school: A case study of an Indian village school

United Nations University Maastricht Economic and social Research Institute {\ldots}

Determinants Of the Prevalence of Diarrhoea in Adolescents Attending School: A Case Study of an Indian Village School

Economic Reforms in India and China: Emerging Issues and Challenges

Prospects of ancient medical systems in India and China in today's world

Strategic Under-utilization of Patents and Entry Deterrence: The Case of Pharmaceutical Industry

Heath Equity in Access and Benefit Incidence: A tale of two states in India

How efficient are the Sub centers of Rural West Bengal in child immunization-A