-The Telegraph New Delhi: A central scheme for skill training and jobs for rural youths has been witnessing below-target placement levels for the past five years, with the government's failure to answer key questions suggesting it is not monitoring the programme closely. Most of the training under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana is provided by NGOs - who are paid for it - and a few state government institutes. Their...

-Livemint.com Farm economist and NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand on the urgency of agricultural market reforms to meet the target of doubling farm incomes by 2022 New Delhi: Apart from staging protests in Delhi, farmers must make themselves heard in state capitals as well to resolve issues outside the central government’s control, farm economist and NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said. In an interview, he spoke of the urgency of agricultural market...

-Frontline.in The Assembly elections have put under intense scrutiny Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development which is touted as worthy of replication throughout the country. Audit reports of the CAG provide ample evidence of it being inefficient, corrupt and not beneficial to the common people. THE standard indicators of development, as is understood in theory and practice, comprise a range of indices, and not necessarily the level of private investment in...

-Livemint.com The recent decline in the labour force participation rate should be a matter of deep concern for the Indian economy It has been a year since Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised the country with the demonetisation announcement. Numerous commentators had criticized the move at the time for a variety of reasons, the most prominent among these being: (a) demonetisation was the wrong instrument for the intended objective of eliminating black money...

-The Hindu Business Line It was a gratuitous and direct assault on the informal sector by the state The retrospective defence being provided by the Government for its act of suddenly demonetising 86 per cent of the country’s currency is as mindless as the act itself. The main argument for demonetisation that was advanced a year ago was that ‘black money’-holders would not dare to bring their demonetised currency to the banks;...