-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Here is a pointer why industry groans about the lack of skilled manpower. Just 2% of India's youth and only about 7% of the whole working age population have received vocational training, a recently released survey report reveals. As in the past, hereditary learning or learning on the job continue to generate more skills than the whole formal vocational training set up of the country which...

-The Hindu The south leads in the number of medical and nursing seats, with for-profit private colleges dominating the scene. It will take major capacity expansion in the government sector to meet WHO norms on access to health professionals. India has achieved major organisational and technological successes but the health system's performance is abysmal. This cannot be attributed to poverty. It is poor health that places India 134th in the Human Development...

-The Hindu There are now as many as 9,000 Indian medical students in China As the costs of a medical education in India continue to rise, an increasing number of students are heading to foreign shores, with China, in particular, emerging as a favoured destination. A six year-education at an approved Chinese medical university, consultants say, can cost Rs. 25 lakh, including one-year internship and annual travel to India, although costs vary at...

-The Hindu   Top civil society bodies are challenging the government's ‘counter-affidavit' in the Paid News case which seeks to gut the Election Commission's powers In a major twist to the Ashok Chavan vs. Madhav Kinhalkar legal battle (more notorious as the "Paid News" scandal), leading civil society organisations and eminent individuals have approached the Supreme Court to implead themselves into the case. Their intervention application, moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan, minces no words...

-Firstpost.com It is becoming increasingly difficult to retain respect for Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. He seems to surface in the media every time the UPA government is about to legislate its pet follies, providing intellectual succour to mindless spending and corruption wrapped up in the package of anti-poverty schemes. Yesterday, Sen bobbed up just when the UPA - under siege for every known scam in India - tried to start discussions on...