-The Hindu It is crucial to align policy across sectors and upgrade the country’s social infrastructure In India’s highly segmented labour market, one can still discern at least three demographic groups that are in urgent need of jobs: a growing number of better educated youth; uneducated agricultural workers who wish to leave agricultural distress behind; and young women, who too are better educated than ever before. India is indeed the fastest growing large economy...

-The Hindu The long-term benefits of GST are clear — the challenge is to quickly address the short-term obstacles The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is in force from today. The reform, touted as a “game changer” and the “reform of the century”, was deemed worthy of a launch on the midnight of June 30 in the Central Hall of the Parliament. Indeed, one is reminded of the famous speech by Pandit...

-The Hindu Business Line Kirana and tea shops are doing better than businesses that involve discretionary spending The Micro-finance industry (MFI) is cursed and blessed at the same time. When there were indications that the micro-finance sector is overheating, with high growth rates, multiple lending and oppressive loan recovery practices, the withdrawal of specified bank notes (SBN) hit them. There were reports of stress from Uttar Pradesh and it appeared that there...

-The Times of India NOIDA: More than 40% of contractual workers have been laid off from Noida's garment industry in the past 40 days after demonetisation was announced. Gautam Budh Nagar district labour department and workers' associations confirmed that while many garment export and manufacturing units have started pulling down shutters, many people who work on a contractual basis have been rendered jobless. Noida has 1,800 garment manufacturing and export units. Of...

-Hindustan Times Plight of the migrants: Jobless labourers return home after demonetisation Twenty-three-year-old Avinash Kumar is planning to postpone his sister’s marriage. The money he had saved, working at a sweatshop in New Delhi’s Mongolpuri, is all but gone. Kumar lost his job in about two weeks from the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, in a move that he termed as the biggest-ever...