-The Hindu Exponential rise in expenditure on material component, notes study group Hyderabad: Budget cuts for the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee scheme coupled with the administrative changes have resulted in reduced employment through the highly successful rural employment scheme in Telangana in the year 2021-22. Improvement in COVID-19 pandemic situation too has been a major factor. Analysis of three years’ data related to the scheme’s expenditure in Telangana’s 32 districts has revealed...

-IdeasForIndia.in The Mandal Commission and Sachar Committee reports, among others, have indicated the existence of caste inequalities within the four major caste groups. However, data on this subject remain limited. Using data from a novel 2014-2015 survey conducted in Uttar Pradesh, this article shows that within-group inequalities among upper castes are significantly less, relative to the within-group inequalities observed among both Hindu and Muslim OBCs and Dalits. Broadly, four social groups –...

-TheWire.in Pradeep Multani, president of the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, talks about how the shortage of raw materials and high input prices are posing a challenge to small businesses in India. Mumbai: Inflation pressures are looming ominously on the Indian business horizon. While the margins of large domestic and multinational corporations have come under pressure, they still have the balance sheet heft to absorb raw material price shocks and the...

-The Hindu There are many indices of proof that seriously contradict the tall claims of employment generation in India Reports on and the visuals of the recent agitations by railway job applicants reveal a widespread problem of massive job insecurity among India’s youth. Alarming figures of unemployment have been recurrent even before the huge dislocation unleashed by lockdowns imposed in 2020-21 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Much before the pandemic,...

-India Spend/ Scroll.in These programmes should look at skilling the workforce for paid jobs rather than unpaid, part-time volunteers. Central government programmes on water emphasise groundwater management by the community in a decentralised manner but, by and large, these schemes are silent on the availability, training and deployment of a skilled workforce for this task, especially in rural areas. Water management at the most decentralised, local levels is often a part-time, volunteer or...