The effect of labour-oriented schemes like MGNREGS and health insurance cover for 300 million people are yet to be captured, says U.N's labour organisation's report India has performed poorly in providing social security protection to its people until recently with “very high vulnerability” to poverty and informal labour practices in the world, according to the International Labour Organisation. In its first comprehensive ‘World Social Security Report’, which was released yesterday, the ILO...

Youth favour sex education in schools More than 20 per cent of girls in Karnataka get married before the age of 18, the minimum legal age for marriage. According to a district-level household and facility survey (DLHS-3, 2010), 11.1 per cent boys and 22.4 per cent girls get married before attaining the minimum legal age for marriage. The average age at marriage for boys in the State is 26.1 years, while for girls...

Irregularities in the public distribution system (PDS) are rampant in the district due to lack of an effective vigilant mechanism. Fair price shop dealers, who are allegedly having nexus with politicians and bureaucrats, are diverting essential commodities to the black market. There are 2,600 fair price shops across the district and about 11 lakh poor families benefit with these. The vigilance and enforcement officials conducted several raids and unearthed illegally hoarded subsidised rations...

Launched 20 years ago with the simple line that "people are the real wealth of a nation", the United Nations' Human Development Report has become the most trusted annual indicator of progress in developing nations. The 20th anniversary report charts progress going back 20 years before that first publication - so it is an ambitious attempt to chart development achievements - or not - going back 40 years. The UN Development Programme's...

Subterfuge is the favourite tool of the corrupt, when caught. That seems to be the case as the Union ministry of commerce and industry proceeds at an elephantine pace in its “inquiry” into the Rs 2,500-crore rice export scam reported in Outlook. Last year, on July 30, Parliament erupted in a furore over the revelation that despite a strict ban on exports, tonnes of 25 per cent broken, non-Basmati rice...