-The Hindu “What is government talking about NEP when it cannot sustain gains of an existing project?” A World Bank funded project to take graduates from elite institutions to rural and remote engineering colleges in poorer States is coming to an end in March, leaving more than 1,200 assistant professors out of a job and some rural colleges bereft of half their faculty. The Centre is preparing its own MERITE project with...

-IndiaSpend.com Latest data indicate a structural shift away from organised sector jobs towards more insecure self-employment or unorganised sector jobs, Mahesh Vyas of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) tells us in this interview Mumbai: "We have an ageing population. If we have shrinking employment in urban places, if the better educated graduates or postgraduates are the ones who are losing jobs, how can we recover the economy from the downslide...

-TheWire.in Development administration is a specialised job. At present, bureaucrats are transferred from one department to another with little attention to whether they have knowledge of agriculture or industries. The new year calls for a basic change in priorities – a need to focus on the development of rural areas. The current farmers’ agitation has thrown into sharp relief the failure of the government to understand the concerns of a large section...

-The Telegraph The inadequate sanctioning of schemes across gram panchayats hinders operations, thereby reducing employment opportunities The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act tracker released by the People’s Action for Employment Guarantee as well as a research report presented by LibTech India reveal why the rural job programme has not been able to cater to the needs of the poorest during this steep rural job crisis. Earlier, a survey by the Azim...

-The Hindu With protests becoming catalysts for anti-authoritarian struggle, the air is ripe for new visions of rural emancipation Those familiar with the systematic attack on agriculture in South Asia over the last decades will not be surprised at the ongoing farmers’ protests in India. It could have been Pakistan, where farmers protesting for support prices were beaten up and arrested in Lahore only a month ago, or Sri Lanka, where shortages...