Incidence of 'vulnerable employment' is highest in South Asia, including India, with 580 million people in the region falling under the category, says the annual Global Employment Trends report of the International Labour Organisation. People in the vulnerable employment category in the region are saddled with low wages and little social protection, said the report. In fact, the whole of Asia Pacific region had a comparatively higher level of vulnerable employment...

South Asian countries, led by India, registered a rapid economic growth in 2010 and their unemployment rates dipped marginally from the previous year, says the latest annual Global Employment Trends (GET) report of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Globally, however, it was a bad year for jobs for the third successive year. The annual employment trends survey points to a highly differentiated recovery in labour markets, with persistently high levels of...

Thiruvoipati Nandakumar How is better delivery expected by allocating more foodgrains, when the system is not equipped to handle even the current level of allocation? The debate about the proposed national food security act seems to be centred on the magnitude of the allocation of food grains. But the issue is far beyond only foodgrains. It is about improving health, sanitation and nutrition standards so that India’s human development goals can be...

The countrywide share of corporate retail in food distribution tripled in the past four years when retail food prices showed the greatest increase. THE dramatic increase in food inflation over the past two years has been associated with several surprises. One major surprise has been how the top economic policymakers in the country have responded to it. The initial response was one of apparent disbelief, followed very quickly by the...

Illegality in India today touches almost every economic activity. It is both systemic and systematic. The Indian ruling class faced its severest crisis of credibility in 2010. Its past caught up with it and skeletons and scams were spilling out of its closets. The scams have a symbiotic relationship with the black economy. The number of scams is growing and so is the size of the black economy, which has reached...