-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Make no MIStake, our cumulative efforts to curb the menace of single-use plastic are just scratching the surface. And while carrybags have been the focus of much of the current discourse — simply because they are the most visible form of threat — a number of other single-use plastic items have remained under the radar. Among these are cigarette butts (yes! they are plastic), drinking...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: With the salt-and-roti expose in Mirzapur embroiling the mid-day meal scheme in controversy, the government will conduct a quality audit of food served to children. This will be conducted by external agencies, including Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Lucknow University and Indian Institute of Management-Lucknow. A similar audit in 2016 by Giri Institute of Development Studies (GIDS), Lucknow, focused only on two districts. This time, the...

-The Indian Express India’s employment crisis calls for more government expenditure in education, adequate training. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his recent Independence Day speech, said, “We need to worry about population explosion”. These words stand in stark contrast to his previous references to India’s demographic dividend where the country’s population was seen as an asset. This shift reflects a new awareness, according to which demography brings a dividend only if...

-The Hindu There is now an opportunity to temper the rancour in Tamil Nadu over ‘migrants taking over’ jobs meant for locals, thanks to the data on migration — inward and outward — from Census 2011. Chennai: Controversies witnessed in recent months over the recruitment of non-Tamils in government jobs in Tamil Nadu have triggered a perceptible rise in voices against migrants taking up jobs in the State. The slogans demanding ‘protection’ of...

-The Hindu The automobile industry is in the grip of an unprecedented crisis. The downturn in the economy has led to a dip in production and huge job losses across the country. July was a difficult month for 28-year-old Rohit Rana. Since 2012, Rana had been employed in a diesel machine shop at Maruti Suzuki’s Gurugram plant in Haryana. As the eldest of three siblings, it became Rana’s responsibility to take care...