The annual report of the International Institute for Labour Studies projects a grim future for employment prospects. WITH the United States and much of Europe grappling with the slowdown in their economies and the resultant social unrest, the publication of the World of Work Report 2011: Making Markets Work for Jobs could not have come at a more opportune moment. Brought out by the International Institute for Labour Studies, which was...

'Economic growth will need massive energy. Will we allow an accident in Japan, in a 40-year-old reactor at Fukushima, arising out of extreme natural stresses, to derail our dreams to be an economically developed nation?' Every single atom in the universe carries an unimaginably powerful battery within its heart, called the nucleus. This form of energy, often called Type-1 fuel, is hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times more powerful...

Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai in his address to recruits at the National Police Academy sought to enlist them in his campaign. BAGEHOT'S classic explains why and how a genre of civil servants mushroomed in India latterly as executive power, authority and prestige declined. None of them had earlier revealed a particularly strong spine. T.N. Seshan bared his traits once he was appointed Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). Others need not...

Memories of the killer cyclone of 1999 continue to haunt Parvati Maiti every time the sky turns overcast. Today, it’s been exactly 12 years since the massive cyclone swept through the state, killing and leaving thousands homeless. However, the 52-year-old woman from Ambiki village, who lost her husband and elder son to the super cyclone, is yet to receive the compensation amount of Rs 3 lakh against the two casualties in her...

By asking the State-appointed interlocutors here on Tuesday to continue talks with the Maoists, to broker peace in the Jangalmahal region, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may have indicated some flexibility in regard to the seven-day deadline she had given the extremists three days ago to lay down their arms and sit for negotiations. “The dialogue process is on and will be continuing,” Sujato Bhadra, one of the key interlocutors,...