-Livemint.com A recent large-scale survey on sanitation in India raises more questions than it answers Bengaluru: India has built more toilets over the past two years than it did in the previous five years, if the latest official sanitation survey is to be believed. The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) conducted between November 2017 and March 2018 shows that 75% of rural households in the country have access to toilets, a...

The increase in organized sector employment (i.e. in establishments employing 10 or more workers) in the second quarter was much higher as compared to that in the first quarter of 2017-18. The seventh round of the Quarterly Report on Employment Scenario in selected sectors (as on 1st October, 2017), which was released in March this year, confirms this. The Labour Bureau’s latest report says that during the period 1st April to...

-OrissaPost.com Bhubaneswar: The state government lost its direction on execution of the biggest rural employment generation scheme–Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). This was indicated in a Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on local bodies for the year ended March 2017. Briefing media about the findings of the audit report, Accountant General of Orissa Madhumita Basu said, “The per annum average income of the households (HHs) in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The first nationwide survey for drug-resistant tuberculosis has found nearly 3 per cent of first-time patients and 12 per cent of those previously treated infected with multi-drug-resistant TB, lowering uncertainty over the scale of the problem. The survey by the Union health ministry has also revealed wide variations in state-level patterns of drug-resistant TB, indicating that the national-level estimates might mask local epidemics that need to be addressed...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Labour minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar told the Lok Sabha on Monday that the government had not set a target for job creation.   In a written response to INLD MP Dushyant Chautala’s question on employment over the past three years, Gangwar said, “No target has been set by the government. However, the employment generation ... is the priority concern of the Government (sic).” The minister said the government...