Five stories you must read over the weekend -Governance Now

Five stories you must read over the weekend

We replug a list of stories from our magazine and website that you should not miss this weekend

GN Bureau | February 11, 2017

#caveat emptor #service charge #education #women workforce #demonetisation #weekend stories #corruption

Weekend stories

The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), in one of the world’s largest surveys of employment trends, found the number of women employed falling from 126.49 million (29.4 percent of the workforce) in 2004-05 to 103.6 million (21.9 percent) in 2011-12, down by 7.5 percentage points. In India, women’s contribution to the GDP was always low – only 17 percent, against the global average of 37 percent, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. Their gradual exit from the workplace darkens this grim tale of unrealised potential.

Read: The distaff conundrum

Education is seen to provide access to stable jobs. India has expanded education in the past two decades. Unfortunately, the quality of education in most of our institutions is such that most graduates are unemployable. The blame lies principally on the poor quality of education in India. Millions of job seekers have impressive sounding diplomas but many don’t have the skills promised by those certificates from substandard colleges and technical institutes. Indian universities impart subpar education and do not find a place in world rankings for higher education institutions.

Read: Grads with grades that go nowhere

The demonetisation of currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination that the government announced on November 8, 2016 and the subsequent remonetisation of the economy has affected almost every person in India. It came as a revelation when the media reported that many people in neighbouring Nepal were also adversely affected by the demonetisation of the high value currency notes when they sent a delegation to India to mitigate the note-ban crisis in January. So the Olympian DeMon-ReMon exercise affected billions of people within and across India's borders.
Read: Does the nation have a right to know anything about DeMO-ReMo?

Reports of the presence of lead in noodles and potassium bromate in bread and the recent clarification by the ministry of consumer affairs that service charge in restaurants is voluntary are pieces of the same puzzle. Apart from the obvious food connection, these issues mark a growing shift towards consumer protection, sounding the death knell for the principle of caveat emptor.
Read: Caveat emptor: It's up to you!

There is a common thread between the charges of alleged corruption CBI has filed against former public servants – Manmohan Singh (prime minister), Harish Gupta (secretary, coal), Shashindra Pal Tyagi (air chief marshal) – and by the anti-corruption bureau of the Delhi government against Swati Maliwal (chairperson, Delhi commission for women). In each case the investigating agency has failed to show when and how much bribe was paid.

Read: The graft, the grease, and the bird that watches others eat

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