-PTI   The government needs to do a lot to create new jobs, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Thursday adding the NSSO data does not necessarily reveal "what exactly is happening". "It is not sufficient to reach to any conclusion about the workforce scenario. I don't believe that we can come to an unambiguous conclusion on the basis of NSSO data that what exactly is happening", he said addressing...

-The Times of India HYDERABAD: The UPA government's petprogramme - the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) - may have been started with the objective of securing the livelihood of the residents of rural India by providing assured employment for 100 days in a year, but has ended up choking the entrepreneurial spirit in the hinterlands ofAndhra Pradesh. These are the findings of a study conducted by a faculty of...

-The Hindu One of the most prominent features of India’s middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number — whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever — has become a staple...

-The Economic Times A high-level panel set up after last month's gang-rape case in Delhi may have made headlines for not recommending the death penalty for rapists, but it is triggering concerns across India Inc for advocating far-reaching changes in rules that govern sexual harassment in corporate workplaces. The panel headed by former Supreme Court chief justice JSVerma, in its report submitted to the government, has said employers must not attempt conciliation...

The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...