-Business Standard Official panel points to bid deficiencies in rural job guarantee, pensions, housing and other programmes Wage payment delays are a distressing feature of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), an official panel says. This has to be adequately addressed, by  the Centre and states, to keep the programme’s spirit alive, it has said. It and some other findings of concern are the result of a multi-state Common Review...

-PTI The study says, although India is a leading producer and exporter of vaccines, the country has the greatest number of deaths among children under five, a prime reason for these deaths are delays in immunization. Washington: India is a leading producer and exporter of vaccines but two-thirds of Indian children do not receive vaccinations on time which makes them susceptible to diseases and contributes to untimely deaths, according to American...

-TheWire.in The number of people needing technical and vocational education is at least 20 million per year, but the system is barely churning out 5 million per year. In India until the middle of the 2000’s, employers were hardly interested in training within their own enterprises, let alone the system outside their enterprises. However, rapid GDP growth during those years led to a serious shortage of skilled staff. The government of India...

-Livemint.com Nominal hikes in crop support prices means that farmers are bearing the burden of government policy to keep food inflation in check New Delhi: The Narendra Modi led government has set a target to double farm incomes by 2022, but in the past three years it announced only nominal hikes for support prices of rice and wheat. What’s more: the raises were lower than the prevailing retail inflation, meaning declining...

-The Indian Express Mining has the distinction of being the most dangerous profession in India. Industry insiders concede that official numbers could be much lower than the actual deaths that take place deep inside the mines. Progressive improvements in the safety standard of India’s coal mines notwithstanding, every ten days last year there was a mining fatality in the country. And every third day last year, on an average, there was...