-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A little over 6% of India's labour force was unemployed in 2017-18, the latest year for which government released data on Friday. The unemployment rate is identical to the rate mentioned in a report leaked in January this year, which had showed unemployment to be at a 45-year high. The leaked report had triggered a major controversy, with the opposition parties slamming the government for its...

-Frontline.in An RTI-based public interest petition in the Bombay High Court points out that 20 lakh EVMs that the manufacturers affirm to have delivered are “missing” from the possession of the Election Commission. Issues relating to the “vulnerability” and “unreliability” of electronic voting machines (EVMs) have come up regularly in the context of the 2019 general election. Complaints filed by opposition parties on specific instances of malfunctioning of EVMs as well as...

-Frontline.in A large proportion of voters who are left out of the electoral rolls despite having valid voter ID cards are Muslims and Dalits. Abdul Rahmat, 28, from Kolkata was shocked and confused when his application for enrolment in the electoral rolls was rejected with the comment “not an Indian citizen”. Born in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, he had moved to the city a decade ago and held a white-collar job with...

-The Hindu The proposal, a version of which has been previously presented to the Congress and to a foundation working with other Opposition parties, has been released in a policy paper titled ‘Strengthening towns through sustainable employment’. With rising unemployment becoming a major poll issue, and several political parties proposing solutions for it in their election manifestos, a group of labour researchers have proposed a national urban job guarantee programme for small...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday took less than a minute to seek the Election Commission’s response to a joint petition filed by leaders of 21 non-NDA political parties pleading for mandatory counting of VVPAT paper slips in at least 50% of EVMs in each assembly segment in the Lok Sabha elections even though it may delay declaration of results. Senior advocate AM Singhvi, who played a...