-The Times of India   LUCKNOW: The Mayawati government approved certain proposals catering to the social sector on Monday. The state gave green signal to regularization of the services of 1.24 lakh para-teachers in the state, besides appointing teachers on contract basis in around 70 boarding schools for children of Scheduled Tribes (STs). The cabinet approval paved way for regularising services of over 1,24,000 shiksha mitras (para-teachers) deployed in primary schools in...

Casual work, self-employment still rule Q&A Why are fewer women working? Education schemes and higher wages of men are keeping them home for longer. Why is casual work growing? The biggest employment scheme, NREGA, employs casual workers. Why is self-employment down? The least-paying jobs in the self-employment sector are worse than NREGA entitlements. *** The latest official figures on employment say this: a typical Indian worker is male, starts working in his mid-20s, is presumably better educated than...

The United Nations commemorates World Population Day next week against the backdrop of an upcoming landmark event: global population hitting the seven billion mark by late October this year. According to current projections, and with some of the world's poorest nations doubling their populations in the next decade, the second milestone will be in 2025: an eight billion population over the next 14 years. Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N....

Despite the much-hyped rural consumption boom and all the social sector programmes of the government, the income inequality between the rural and urban consumer widened to 91% in the first five years of the United Progressive Alliance coming to power in 2004. According to the 66th round of the household consumption expenditure survey released by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on Friday, the per capita expenditure level of the urban...

-IANS   Bihar's literacy rate may be the lowest in the country at 63.8 percent, but it could achieve total literacy in about two decades like the rest of India, predicts a new report. During the past decade, the literacy rate in Bihar has increased by 17 percent, much faster compared to nine percent for the entire country, the report points out. "If Bihar is able to maintain its present momentum in educational...