-The Times of India The new office will give real time analysis of the government's social programmes, says Jairam Ramesh At a time when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is facing flak for a series of alleged corruption scams, the ministry of rural development that has an annual budget of approximately ` 800 billion has decided to go ahead and create an office of concurrent evaluation. The proposal for a...

-The Hindu   Investment in a scheme that guarantees rural employment with minimum wages should be seen as complementary and not alternative to development activities A recent paper by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has argued that the "push" factors of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are not as important as the economic growth "pull" factors, for increasing agricultural wages. The paper has received wide media...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Here is a pointer why industry groans about the lack of skilled manpower. Just 2% of India's youth and only about 7% of the whole working age population have received vocational training, a recently released survey report reveals. As in the past, hereditary learning or learning on the job continue to generate more skills than the whole formal vocational training set up of the country which...

-The United Nations An estimated 73 million young people will be out of work this year, according to a new United Nations report that says the long-term impact of the youth employment crisis could be felt for decades and calls for creative and wide-ranging policy solutions to address the problem. Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013: A generation at risk attributes that high number to persistent unemployment, a proliferation of temporary jobs...

-The Economic Times The UPA government's flagship employment guarantee programme can play an important role in conserving natural resources and sustaining water supply and food production, according to a study. Conceived to provide livelihood security for the rural poor, the scheme can also help reduce and counter the impact of climate change in villages, according to the study, "Environmental Benefits and Vulnerability Reduction through Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme"...