-The Business Standard The rural non-farm sector has emerged as India's largest job creator since 2000 and needs to play a pivotal role in our structural transformation Job creation has to be a pressing priority for any new government. But it is worthwhile trying to understand the nature of our employment challenge. The unemployment rate, as understood in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) world, is not a very useful indicator...

-The Hindustan Times The women's reservation Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010 but has not yet been passed in the Lok Sabha. No other legislation in our democratic history has been discussed for so many years (15 years) without being passed or rejected. Such a delay has happened even though major parties support the Bill and there are 1.2-1.5 million women who hold elected office at the local level...

A nation's prosperity is determined to a large extent by the health care received by its female population. India's maternal mortality is down but we still have miles to go before we come close to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets (Please see the links and graph below). The latest available figures released by the Office of Registrar General (India) provide some interesting trends on maternal health indicators. It...

-The Hindu     The 13.1 per cent rate of unemployment in the 15-24 years age-group globally is more than twice that among the adult population. With one million more young people joining the ranks of the jobless in 2013, the world's youth are facing a disproportionate burden, says the latest report of the International Labour Organisation. The Global Employment Trends report 2014 also records slow progress of late in reducing levels of vulnerable...

-Economic and Political Weekly This article re-estimates the prevalence of child malnutrition among the under-five age group in eight north-east states using the composite index of anthropometric failure method as proposed by P Svedberg, using the National Family Health Survey-3 data. These data show that in the north-east only about 35% of children under-five are underweight. However, results using the CIAF method indicate a substantially higher malnutrition level of 56%, and...