-PTI Kanpur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil tomorrow a clutch of skill development initiatives aimed at skilling unemployed youth and also lay the foundation stone for the Indian Institute of Skills in Kanpur. “Apart from launching 31 Kaushal Kendras which will serve as skilling centres and target mainly unemployed youth for training purposes, the Prime Minister will also inaugurate an exhibition named Kaushal Mahotsav,” a senior official in the Ministry of...

-The Hindu Business Line The NITI Aayog should revive district-level planning in order to implement the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution While the Planning Commission, which was virtually an executive arm of the Union government, stands abolished, the District Planning Committee (DPC), a constitutional institution mandated “to prepare a draft development plan for the district as a whole” with a focus on resource endowments, environmental conservation, infrastructural development and spatial...

-The Hindu ‘It has reduced socioeconomic disparities in healthcare’ A new study brings in first conclusive evidence of the role played by Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) in reducing ‘socioeconomic disparities’ existing in maternal care. The JSY was launched in 2005 as part of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to improve maternal and neonatal health by promotion of institutional deliveries (childbirth in hospitals). According to a working paper by Ruchi Jain (NCAER), Sonalde Desai...

-PTI WASHINGTON: The Indian administrative service, which is hamstrung by political interference and outdated personnel procedures, need urgent reform or risk institutional decline, according to a top US-based thinktank. "Unfortunately, the IAS is hamstrung by political interference, outdated personnel procedures, and a mixed record on policy implementation, and it is in need of urgent reform," the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in its report on 'The Indian Administration Service Meets Big...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Free health-care services during childbirth remain a pipe dream for most of India's poor, whether it relates to diagnostic tests, medicines, transport or even food, despite the Union health ministry launching a "free entitlements" programme five years ago. The families of most women who seek childbirth in government hospitals are forced to pay for supposedly "free" services, at times experiencing catastrophic expenditures likely to accentuate their poverty, two...