mohini gupta

Child marriage is a detrimental practice with negative consequences for girls' health and well-being. This study aims to identify the prevalence of child marriage and associated risk factors within the Madhesi community.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in a sub-metropolitan city of Lumbini Province, Nepal, in 2023. A total of 352 married women were randomly selected using simple random sampling and interviewed using a structured questionnaire between March 28th and April 17th. Descriptive categorical variables were expressed as proportions. Risk factors associated with child marriage were measured using the Chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression analysis. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 26.

The majority of respondents (36.1%) were in the age group 21-25, with a mean age of 25.90 years ± 4.6 years.  Most respondents (48.9%) received only basic-level education, with the majority (72.4%) reporting their parents as having no formal education. The primary family occupation was farming (40.1%). The prevalence of child marriage was high (77.0%), with a median marriage age of 18 years. Logistic regression analysis revealed significant risk factors including lower education levels of respondents and their parents, husband's occupation, lack of awareness about the legal marriage age, limited decision-making power regarding marriage, belief in the dowry system, discussions with friends about child marriage, and occurrence of child marriage among friends.

Despite legal prohibition, child marriage remains prevalent in the Madhesi community. Educational interventions targeting women and parents, empowering women with decision-making authority, and addressing the dowry system are crucial for reducing this harmful practice.

The paper focuses on the impact of exchange rate volatility on the trade flow between India and the US. Previous research on India's trade flow has concentrated on India's overall aggregate export across border nations. Many maintain the work on bilateral trade pair-wise, although very few have observed the commodities trade at a disintegrated scale. This paper explores Indian export trade at disaggregate commodity-wise, undertaking 60 Indian exporting commodities to the US. We apply generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) based models to gauge the real exchange rate volatility and to discover the short-run and long-run relationships; an autoregressive distributed lag model is applied to the time series data. The empirical analysis at the disaggregate level of export indicates the short-run as well as the long-run effect of exchange rate volatility. However, the estimated short-run effect, which lasts onto the long-run effect, is in 16 exporting commodities. This paper provides more specific information about the relationship between exchange rate volatility and bilateral export commodities using individual-level data. The study's finding helps to undertake the view of invariability and consider the industry before policymakers.