The Labour Bureau recently released its first report on employment in the country. Till now, job estimates have usually been available in the employment-unemployment surveys of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). The most recent of these is the 64th round (2007-08), preliminary results of which were reported in this column on 20 July. The 64th round estimates were disappointing, with annual employment growth during 2004-05 and 2007-08 at 0.8...

India's economy grew faster than expected in the second quarter of its financial year, figures show. In the three months to September, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was up 8.9% from the same period last year. However, inflation remains a real concern for authorities with new figures showing prices rising by 9.7% in October. Although only the world's 11th biggest economy, India is the second fastest-growing major economy, behind China. Strong farm production, increased vehicle...

The United Nations health agency today mapped out what countries can do, including raising more funds and spending it more efficiently, to ensure that everyone who needs health care can access it despite rising costs. The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that Governments worldwide are struggling to pay for health care, which is rising as populations get older, as more people suffer chronic diseases, and as new and more expensive treatments...

Twenty years is a good enough time to assess how countries of the world, irrespective of the economic or political system they follow, have performed in promoting human development. Successive Human Development Reports (HDR), since 1990, have mainstreamed health and education as critical indicators of human progress and contributed to international policy structures. For instance, the Millennium Development Goals, aimed at using international financial resources to reduce global poverty, can...

The first-ever annual employment survey by the Labour Bureau under the Union Ministry of Labour points to a “jobless economic growth” last fiscal year. During the bureau’s survey period 2009-10 — also the year in which India’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 7.4 per cent — unemployment was 9.4 per cent. The National Sample Survey Organisation, using its Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2007-08, had painted a rosy unemployment figure of 2.8...