In August 2010, the U.N. Secretary General set up a “High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability,” to formulate a “new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity” for the world. Co-chaired by the Presidents of Finland and South Africa, the panel submitted its detailed report in January 2012. The report is under consideration in the Secretary General's office, and will be a key input to the upcoming U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development...

Soon, the country’s estimated 40 million people with disabilities will be able to track job opportunities at the click of a mouse. www.jobability.org will be launched tomorrow at a national conference on livelihood for persons with disability held by business chamber Ficci. The site is designed to be friendly for the disabled and will be exclusively for use by such people. The portal, the first such initiative in South Asia that...

A rural Indian spending Rs. 22.50 a day would not be considered poor by a Planning Commission whose Deputy Chairman's foreign trips between May and October last year cost a daily average of Rs. 2.02 lakh Pranab Mukherjee's stirring call for austerity tugs at the national tear ducts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pleaded for it in the past and watched his flock embrace it creatively. With the Finance Ministry even...

-The Hindu All India Confederation of SC, ST Organisations, State unit, is organising a national seminar here on June 17 to discuss implementation of reservations for Dalits in private sector and higher judiciary. The seminar would also review recent Supreme Court's judgement against reservations in promotions. The meeting would be presided over by Udit Raj, who had earlier rallied SCs, STs across the country at Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi when the...

 Twenty-two newbie managers, fresh from B-schools across India, are raring to go. Only, they won’t make spreadsheets to sell soaps or fizzy drinks. From June, they will assist senior bureaucrats across 11 districts of Jharkhand where the Centre is funding uplift schemes. These managers — from IIT-Kharagpur, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)-Mumbai, Visva-Bharti in Bengal’s Santiniketan, XISS-Ranchi, XLRI-Jamshedpur and others — are Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows in some of...