-The Hindu PM Modi to head panel that will give strategic advice On the first day of the New Year, the Modi Government set up NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India) in place of the Planning Commission. The Prime Minister will head the new institution tasked with the role of formulating policies and direction for the Government. Its Governing Council will comprise State Chief Ministers and Lt. Governors of Union Territories. The...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Rural Development Year end Review -2014-15 The Ministry of Rural Development is likely to introduce Mobile Monitoring System for effective implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, MGNREGA. The Monitoring System will be introduced on a pilot basis to allow real time monitoring of all works, workers attendance and work site measurement. The move is likely to plug leakages in the rural job scheme. Moreover,...

-The United Nations Higher education is a prerequisite for millions of youth in the developing world who hope to find a decent, "non-vulnerable" job, a new United Nations study has established. The study, conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and released today, surveys 28 countries worldwide and demonstrates that having a high level of education "serves as a fairly dependable guarantee" towards securing a formal job. "The report confirms the role of...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A government panel that evaluated Muslims' post-Sachar socio-economic conditions has suggested an anti-discrimination law, targeted mainly at employers, to combat the growing disparity between the community and the rest of the country. The committee, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Amitabh Kundu, has failed to detect any "sea change on the ground" despite several welfare plans being launched for the community after Sachar's late-2006 report. Like Sachar, the Kundu...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Mangal Singh's three sons were forced to work as daily wage labourers in Gujarat, hundreds of kilometres from their village in Rajasthan's Ajmer district, before the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was introduced. They were employed there for perilous digging of wells and stayed away from their home for months leaving their 82-year-old father to fend for himself. The NREGA came as a big boon for...