-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government is planning an innovative strategy to use the approximately 4.5 lakh engineering and polytechnic seats that stay vacant every year to teach skill training courses. The plan, which is at a preliminary stage with approvals needed to make it actionable, aims to plug the skills gap, provide options for youth who might be falling out of any kind of professional or academic training, and...

-IPSNews.net UNITED NATIONS: When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics to Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University, the accolade had a significant relevance to the United Nations. The Academy bestowed the honour on the British-born Deaton, 69, primarily for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare.   Deaton’s research reflects some of the socio-economic issues on the U.N. agenda, including poverty alleviation, economic inequalities, consumption patterns, household...

-Livemint.com The destruction of almost two-thirds of the state’s cotton crop by the whitefly has forced 15 farmers to commit suicide, pushed hundreds of others into debt An insect has ravaged the cotton crop across Punjab’s Malwa region. The destruction of almost two-thirds of the state’s cotton crop by the whitefly has forced as many as 15 farmers to commit suicide and pushed hundreds of others into debt. A Times of India report...

-The Indian Express The central message of Angus Deaton’s work: Becoming richer is not necessarily the same thing as becoming better-off. In the preface to his magisterial 2013 book The Great Escape, Angus Deaton thanks his teachers. “Richard Stone was perhaps my most profound influence,” Deaton writes, “from him I learned about measurement — how little we can say without it and how important it is to get it right.” Important, indeed....

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Children attend schools in larger numbers on days their midday meal menu includes eggs, a central study has found in Bengal and Telangana. The findings of the 7th Joint Review Mission on the midday meal scheme have bolstered the case for the inclusion of eggs - a nutritious and difficult-to-adulterate option - in the programme across the states. In July last year, the Union human resource development ministry had...