Employees' provident fund organization: Empowering members by digital transformation

Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) was established by the Government of India with the purpose of ensuring financial and social security for industrial workers and their dependents. With more than 150 million accounts of its members, EPFO is the world's largest social security organization. Operational processes of EPFO were riddled with over emphasis on rules and regulations but were weak on transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and efficiency. Consequently, the primary purpose of social security of industrial employees was compromised. Business process reengineering combined with adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and social media brought a sea change to the functioning of EPFO. This paper documents the transformation of EPFO from a bureaucratic, opaque organization to a customer-centric, stakeholder-friendly, transparent, and accountable organization.     

Plagiarism litigation trends in the USA and Australia

In this article we explore the increasing complexity of plagiarism litigation in the USA and Australia. Plagiarism has always been a serious academic issue and academic staff and students have wrestled with its definition and appropriate penalties for some time. However, the advent of the Internet and more freely accessible information resources, along with busy lives and pressures to succeed, may be leading to more frequent incidents of plagiarism. Alternatively, the same information resources and software packages may mean that we are now more able to identify when plagiarism occurs. The following discussion explores not just the traditional issues that have arisen with respect to plagiarism, but also the extended contexts in which plagiarism discussion is taking place in courtrooms, not university staffrooms. We consider issues in common in the two nations, as well as the wider academic community, and distinctive areas of litigation that have arisen in the USA and Australia.     

Educational malpractice and setting damages for ineffective teaching: a comparison of legal principles in the USA,England and Australia

The extent to which educational institutions and their teachers in the USA, England, and Australia should bear legal responsibility in damages for ineffective classroom teaching is the subject of this article. At the heart of the controversy regarding educational malpractice is the issue of remedies. Federal and state courts in the USA have resisted awarding damages where such an award would appear to sound in educational malpractice. However, although courts in Australia have yet to declare with any degree of certainty, they appear positioned to follow the English approach that ostensibly acknowledges a school's duty of care to provide effective education for all children.     

A Judicial‐Mental Health Partnership to Heal Young Children in Juvenile Court

In this article, we describe the background and issues to be addressed related to dependent children in juvenile court. In an important effort to systematically examine developmental functioning and treatment needs in maltreated and violence‐exposed young children, the Prevention and Evaluation of Early Neglect and Trauma (PREVENT) initiative of the Dependency Court Intervention Program for Family Violence, a national demonstration project in the Miami‐Dade Juvenile Court, developed a program to evaluate all infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who are adjudicated dependent by the court. The goal of the intervention is to raise awareness of the needs of infants and toddlers in juvenile court and to work toward healing the child. The PREVENT program involved the evolution of a judicial‐mental health partnership designed to assist the court in making more informed decisions about the best interest of the child by adding scientific knowledge about development, prevention, intervention, evaluation, and treatment. The outcome of the partnership and multidisciplinary approach is illustrated through presenting a case vignette of a mother and baby showing the challenges and strengths of intervention. Finally, we consider overall outcomes of the intervention and directions for the future.     

Breaking Out is Hard to Do: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in Mexico's One-Party Hegemonic Regime

Theoretically based on Albert O. Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty , this study examines three cases of rupture or exit by Mexican presidential contenders, in 1940, 1952, and 1988, and one "noncase," in 1999, with a view to how dissidents' strategies shape political institutions. Mexico's PRI-dominated political system depended on its leaders' ability to create an equilibrium based on mutual incentives to remain loyal to the regime.     

The Campaign for Japanese‐Australian Children to enter Australia, 1957–1968: A History of Post‐War Humanitarianism

Between 1957 and 1968, the Prime Minister Robert Menzies and several of his ministers, including Alexander Downer, the Minister for Immigration from 1958 to 1963, were inundated with hundreds of letters of protest demanding that action be taken to assist Japanese children fathered by Australian soldiers who had been stationed in Japan during the Allied occupation and beyond it between 1946 and 1956. The response from the Australian public forms the basis of this article to consider how attempts for the transnational movement of children in the postwar period point to understandings of humanitarianism at this time. The response to the predicament of the Japanese‐Australian children offers, I argue, an intriguing narrative of postwar humanitarianism that articulates the beginning of several historic shifts. The incident points to the growing challenge to the White Australia Policy, paradoxically on racialised and paternalistic grounds to bring white Australian children to Australia. The government shifted the discussion from one of immigration to foreign aid as a way of diffusing the public response and in doing so positioned itself in the new narrative about supporting rehabilitation and development. The media was crucial in evoking a response that depoliticized the issue of responsibility by reducing it to an emotional reaction.     

Neonaticide: A Comprehensive Review of Investigative and Pathologic Aspects of 55 Cases

Analysis of neonaticide cases from a law enforcement perspective is virtually non-existent in the research literature. Nonetheless, law enforcement and prosecutors face unique challenges when investigating and prosecuting neonaticide; and a specialized, informed approach is necessary. By highlighting the crime scene characteristics and autopsy findings of 55 neonaticide victims, the authors hope to assist the law enforcement and legal communities in their neonaticide investigations. Specifically, this article clarifies how neonaticide occurs by chronologically examining the pregnancy, the birth and death of the infant, the subsequent crime scene (or scenes) and the pathological findings. The article also highlights the potential challenges that may arise during investigation and prosecution of these cases in addition to providing the forensic community with recommended investigative techniques.     

Characteristics of young children exposed to violence: the safe start demonstration project

The Safe Start demonstration projects, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) under the first phase of the Safe Start initiative, are primarily designed to influence change at the systems or macrolevels to reduce the incidence of and impact of exposure to violence for children aged birth to 6 years; direct services are also provided to young children and their families who were exposed to violence. The data presented in this article come from 10 communities that submitted data regarding the characteristics of young children exposed to violence to OJJDP. These data represent families who are typically not represented in the databases of state child protective services programs but instead have been identified by domestic violence advocates, early care and education providers, family members, court personnel, police, and other social service personnel as families with young children in need of intervention due to violence exposure.The purpose of this article is to describe the characteristics of young children and their parents who seek help for psychosocial problems related to exposure to family and community violence. Results indicate that one quarter of the children and nearly half of their parents evidenced clinical levels of stress, suggesting the need to intervene at the family level as well as at the individual level when working with young children exposed to violence. The information presented, including the extent of exposure to violence, the multiple types of violence to which children are exposed, the impact of this exposure on young children and their families, and the multiple ways in which families exposed to violence come to the attention of service providers is useful for policy makers and service providers who are interested in breaking the cycle of violence by meeting the needs of the children exposed to violence and their families.