-The Hindu In an unusual sequence of events around a research paper that claimed air pollution was responsible for reducing life expectancy in Delhi by six years, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar not only condemned the study but said in an e-mailed public statement that “the timing of the release of the study seems to be motivated as it has been done at a time when Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is...

-Business Standard As economic growth came in at 7.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015-16, many argue that much of it could be attributed to discrepancies. Chief Statistician of India T C A Anant dispels these notions. He tells Dilasha Seth and Indivjal Dhasmana that the principal method of calculating the gross domestic product (GDP) is by taking into account the production-side estimates and not an expenditure one. Edited...

-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...

At the Labour Line office of Aajeevika Bureau situated at Syphon Chouraha on Bedla Road in Udaipur, Santosh Poonia said that 12,926 calls were received by his office between August 2011 and March 2016, out of which almost 37 percent were payment-related grievance calls. During the same time-span, 2,008 payment-related cases (as received by the Labour Line office) could be settled. Poonia, who is Programme Manager (Legal Education and Aid...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com For the past decade state governments have launched a series of Internet-based initiatives to deliver services more efficiently. Technology has been seen as the best way of bypassing red tape and corruption in the system to reach the poor directly with benefits. Beneficiaries are identified through biometrics and a series of tech solutions like smart cards, micro ATMs and so on. The result of these efforts is that India is...