Vivekananda Journal of Research

Evaluating the Impact of Government Schemes on Financial Inclusion and Poverty Alleviation

Gurpreet Singh — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

Financial inclusion is a process of providing basic financial services to the weaker sections of society. Nearly 7% of the world population, which means 600 million people still struggle in extreme poverty. Financial inclusion schemes help to uplift BPL families from poverty such as MGNREGA, APY, PMJDY and PMMY etc. The paper indicates that India has witnessed rapid progress in financial inclusion. The PMJDY scheme successfully engaged 53 crore people in banking services. The MGNREGA scheme reflects efforts to expand employment opportunities. PMJJBY, PMSBY and APY schemes provide future benefits and insurance in old age to the beneficiaries. These schemes significantly contributed to financial inclusion by providing a large population with a reliable pension, future benefits, life insurance, etc at an affordable cost. India is a fast-growing economy and according to the financial inclusion index, it improved from 53.9 to 56.4 in 2021. This improvement in the index is possible with these initiatives which taken by banks and the government. The growth rate of financial inclusion schemes is calculated by CAGR and EGR statistical methods.
The data was collected from the period 2014-2024 for every financial inclusion scheme. The paper suggests that continuing innovation and increasing outreach of schemes are maximizing the impact of schemes and achieving inclusive growth of the economy.

Chasing Financial Goals: How Social Media Engagement, Fear of Missing Out, and Digital Financial Literacy Shape Investment Behaviour of Gen Z?

Charu Maheshwari — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

In today’s digital world, Gen Zs increasingly rely on social media for financial advice and investment trends. While digital platforms offer opportunities for financial learning, they also trigger emotional reactions such as Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), that may impact their financial and investment behaviour. This study explores how Social Media Engagement (SME) impacts Investment Behaviour (IB) among Gen Zs, mediated by FoMO and moderated by Digital Financial Literacy (DFL). By using purposive sampling, this study gathered data from 291 Gen Z individuals from Chennai city who actively follow financial contents on social media and also invest. The results unfolded that SME significantly predicts FoMO and both these variables positively and significantly impact the investment behaviour. A strong partial mediation effect of FoMO was discovered between social media engagement and investment behaviour. Critically, digital financial literacy moderates the FoMO-IB pathway negatively. Further, the conditional effects show that higher DFL weakened FoMO’s impact on IB. The study contributes novel understanding into the role of DFL, as it reduces vulnerability to FoMO-led risks. This research uniquely captures the emotional–cognitive dynamics of investment behaviour among Gen Z, a critical but underexplored area, offering actionable strategies for policymakers and educators to foster informed financial actions in the digital age.

Predicting The Impact of Psychological Ownership of Online Behavioral Advertising on Consumer’s Attitude: An Empirical Investigation

Priyanka, Sadaf Siraj — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

Purpose: With marketers increasingly monitoring people's online behaviour to collect information, using this information to reach people with individually targeted advertisements, online behavioural advertising (OBA) has emerged as a game changer in the advertising landscape. But often marketers find themselves facing the personalization-privacy paradox. OBA embraces psychological ownership as standard practice. However, research on the role of psychological ownership in online behavioural advertising is still lacking. The study investigates the role of psychological ownership in determining people's affect & cognition regarding online behavioural advertising.

Methodology: The data was collected from 540 respondents with an exposure of OBA. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses.

Findings: The findings showed that psychological ownership enhances customers' attitudes toward online behavioural advertising, thereby reducing the negative impact of privacy concerns. In addition, self-investment, perceived control, and perceived familiarity emerged as significant factors leading to psychological ownership.

Practical Implications: These results can be used by different stakeholders including marketers. Marketers can use methods to improve the psychological ownership of the customers so that the privacy concerns of the customers can be reduced and customers may trust the marketers.

Originality: This paper introduces a novel concept that connects psychological ownership with OBA, offering guidance for future researchers.

Cracking the Artificial Intelligence Code: an Analytical Discourse on AI’s Role as a Counter Terrorism Tool in Jammu and Kashmir, Union Territory of India

Ishaan Arora — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir (contemporary union territory) has always been the talk of the town owing to the frequent terror strikes that had taken toll of many innocent lives. Despite the cautious and proactive alert mode of our dedicated and dreadful soldiers, these insensitive and inhuman activities continued to shake the land of Jammu and Kashmir, all thanks to the tacitly inserted Article 370 into the Indian Constitution, that bestowed upon a special status to the erstwhile state and owing to this, the governments were unable or rather rendered helpless in curbing the trends of terrorism here. Since the abrogation of Article 370, the entire scenario has witnessed massive transformation especially in terms of the declining trends of terrorism and allied insensitive activities. Trends reflect that the abrogation of Article 370 has enabled the government to exercise massive control over the union territory in terms of undertaking surgical strikes on terrorist and most importantly cutting the flow of funding to the people (localites) who used to participate in the stone pelting exercises and tend to disturb peace and tranquility of the land. Its abrogation has paved way for the government to come up with artificial intelligence and machine learning based intelligence systems and radars which coupled with the alertness of our dreadful army has been instrumental in tracking any suspicious activity in the valley, thereby curbing terrorism trends to a very large extent. This chapter seeks to unfold the way artificial intelligence can go a long way in curbing terrorism thereby making it a lucrative place to sustain oneself amidst peace and tranquility.

Sacred Spaces, Silenced Voices: Buddhist Nationalism and Tamil Spatial Rights in Sri Lanka’s Tea Plantations

Hewa Alawaththage Sachini U Geethanjalee — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

When a gleaming modern Buddhist temple rose on the misty hills of ‘Hanthana’ Tea Plantation in 2017, it promised spiritual renewal and economic prosperity through religious tourism. For the Tamil families who had lived and worked on these lands for generations, however, the temple’s construction marked the beginning of unprecedented exclusion from their own spaces. The central research problem explores how the establishment of a modern religious symbol (Sandagiri Maha Seya) on plantation land affects the spatial rights (social and cultural) and economic opportunities of Tamil workers in tea plantations. The study was conducted at Hanthana Uduwelawatta Tea Plantation, Kandy District in 2025. A qualitative-dominant mixed-methods design was employed, utilizing a purposive sampling method to select participants representing diverse economic and social positions within the plantation community. Data collection included semi-structured interviews (with 27 participants) alongside spatial mapping, participant observation, and document analysis to ensure methodological triangulation. The collected data were analyzed through thematic analysis, supported by interpretive coding to uncover recurring themes related to informal economic practices, class transformation, and spatial mobility. Interpretation focused on linking everyday livelihood practices to broader structures of urban political economy, revealing how economic advancement occurs through informal but organized strategies. Results show that residents engage in quiet capitalist mechanisms through three interconnected processes: (1) spatial entrepreneurialism, leveraging location advantages near commercial nodes; (2) social and cultural capital mobilization, enhancing class positioning through education and networks; and (3) symbolic capital manipulation, using visible social markers to assert respectability and upward mobility within marginalized spaces. The conclusion argues that ‘Quiet Capitalism’ extends Bayat’s ‘quiet encroachment’ and Bourdieu’s capital theory by revealing how marginalized urban residents convert spatial, cultural, and social resources into sustained economic advancement. The findings emphasize that informal settlements such as ‘Hanthana’ are economically productive and socially transformative spaces deserving institutional recognition, infrastructural investment, and inclusive urban policy. The study contributes to political geography and postcolonial studies by theorizing ‘spatial hegemony’: the deployment of religious symbolism to legitimize exclusionary spatial practices.

The Role of Forgiveness as a Therapeutic Measure in Adult Romantic Relationships

Meher Kaur, Subhash Meena, Pankhuri Sharma — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

The purpose of this study is to look into how forgiveness can be used as a therapeutic strategy in romantic relationships between adults. The study used a cross-sectional mixed technique that combined quantitative and qualitative evaluations. Participants had to be in a romantic relationship or have been in one in the past, and they had to be between the ages of 20 and 30. The Heartland Forgiveness Scale and self-drafted semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from the participants. By examining and contrasting the two research, their congruence was found. Sixty-three percent of people forgive themselves, other people, and their situations in general, according to the quantitative data set. According to subscales, 52% of respondents forgive themselves, 53% forgive others, and 64% forgive uncontrollable events. The qualitative study, on the other hand, concentrated on the biopsychosocial setting, psychological cost, concrete modalities, and link building, highlighting the significance of contextual and individual aspects with regard to the empirical evidence of a person's capacity for forgiveness.

Editorial

Sachin Gupta — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

The issue brings impactful studies starting from Evaluating the Impact of Government Schemes on Financial Inclusion and Poverty Alleviation, Analyzing the impact of Social Media Engagement, FoMO and Digital Financial Literacy in shaping Investment Behaviour of Gen Z. Further, the issue contains an empirical investigation on predicting the Impact of Psychological Ownership of Online Behavioral Advertising on Consumer’s Attitude, an Analytical Discourse on AI’s Role as a Counter Terrorism Tool in J&K, and Buddhist Nationalism and Tamil Spatial Rights in Sri Lanka’s Tea Plantations.

It also carries a take on Dystopian Literature that Critiques and Constructs Marxist Theories, and ends with a legal luminary’s recognition as a perspective.

We extend our gratitude and encourage the readers, authors, reviewers, and contributors who have shared their expertise and contributed to this issue.

Reading Social Reality through Fiction: A Take on Dystopian Literature that Critiques and Constructs Marxist Theories

Srijana Sidharth — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

Social theories have a key function of criticizing social conditions or political systems. While raising these questions, theories also warn us against the potential negative consequences of utopian thought. Interestingly, one may observe that dystopian works of fiction serve the aforementioned key functions of theories as well. Speaking of Social theory, few can claim to have left an impact on it as deep-rooted and widespread as Karl Marx. Further, Socialism and communism, concepts that carved out strands in intelligentsia and also changed the histories of nations, are without doubt credited to Marx. These are also ideas that are often accused of being utopian.

This essay shall aim to place literary fiction in the equation with social reality and theory by looking at how fictive narratives critique and construct Marxist theory. The observations have

been made by taking the broader themes of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Ayn Rand’s Anthem, and Franz Kafka’s The Trial, which are important 20th century novels addressing Marxist theory.

The reading of aforementioned novels shall be done while keeping in mind Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and German Ideology. Bertolt Brecht’s work too, has been considered for the current essay.

An Indefatigable Prosecutor: The Indomitable Legacy of Shri. Damodar Das Mathur

Swapnil Choudhary, Satvik Mathur — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0530

While the names of renowned lawyers, eminent judges, and celebrated jurists often find a place in public discourse, one essential pillar of the justice system frequently remains in the shadows, the public prosecutor. Often overlooked and underacknowledged, public prosecutors serve as the guardians of justice, ensuring that the rule of law prevails in courtrooms across the country. This article seeks to shed light on the remarkable legacy of one such unsung hero, Mr. Damodar Das Mathur, by tracing his unwavering commitment to justice and his distinguished service as a tireless and principled public prosecutor through the landmark cases he diligently pursued.