http://yojana.gov.in

Public Account – A Continuing Aberration in Our Financial System
Govind Bhattacharjee 

November 01, 2015  Web Exclusives

Abstract: Public Account funds being managed by the Government is a perpetual source of distortion in our public finances. It is time to separate all Public Account funds from the cash balances of the Government and entrust their management to professional trusts free from Government control. Apart from making these funds self-sustaining, this will also enforce much greater discipline in the management of fiscal deficits and public debt. .

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Development Evaluation in India
Dr. S. Chandrasekar 

November 01, 2015  Web Exclusives

The system of evaluation in India was almost simultaneously conceived at the time, when the country was gearing itself for a planned economy. During the post independence period, with huge resource constraints, government had intended to take development initiatives through the system of Five Year Plans. The planning exercises were geared to address the extreme socio-economic inequity and to bring in maximum welfare to the people at large. When the First Five Year Plan was launched in July 1951, the importance of creating of a systematic evaluation was felt and as such the central government proposed to establish an evaluation organization. The First Five Year Plan document highlighted the necessity as “Systematic evaluation should become a normal administrative practice in all branches of public activity. With the object of developing the techniques of evaluation a beginning has now been made with the establishment of an independent evaluation organization under the Planning Commission for community projects and other intensive area development programmes”.

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Skilling for Life and Livelihood through Basic Education: Old Approach in Need of Revival
Khyati Srivastava - Research Fellow at Public Policy Research Centre, New Delhi 

Octobe 01, 2015  Web ExclusivesSkilling , Basic Education

Education in India has always been a symbol of pride and heritage. Delivery of quality education to all has been prolonged effort post independence. Presently, India is one of the world’s fastest growing economies in terms of GDP share (PPP), only behind China and US (World Bank Report 2011). The ‘Global Economic Prospects’ report published by World Bank in January’2015 forecasted that by 2017 , India will out-pace China in terms of GDP growth rate. The country sits on the most advantageous situation with 65per cent of its population being under the age of 35 and approximately 12 million individuals on an average are expected to join the workforce every year. With these demographics, it happens to be world’s youngest nation of median age 27years.

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Government Vision On Skill Development
Utsav Kumar Singh - ICSSR Doctoral Fellow at Department of African Studies, university of Delhi.
Email: singh.utsav@gmail.com

October 01, 2015 | Web Exclusives Skill Development

Prime Minister, in his Independence Day speech spoke of his Skill India Mission to promote holistic development, showing very intent on placing renewed emphasis on skill development in the services and manufacturing sectors. Skill development plays a-vital role in improving labour market outcomes and economic growth. World leaders understand the emergent need of skilled development. At the G20 Summit in Brisbane, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder urged G20 leaders to focus on policies that drive growth through more and better jobs.

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Promoting Growth and Fighting Poverty or Reducing Greenhouse Gases: The Conundrum for Developing Countries?
Saumya Umashankar

October 01, 2014 | Saumya Umashankar  Web Exclusives,Poverty , Greenhouse Gases

There is a popular emotional appeal in favour of the environment while positing a trade-off with growth–development comes from the consumption of scarce natural resources that release greenhouse gases and damage the environment for centuries to come; green is clean and economic growth is dirty. But when the same issue is queried as a trade-off between fighting poverty and preserving the environment, the response is not as easy.

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Addressing Pharmaceuticals Patent Monopolies through Compulsory Licensing in India
Amit Singh

October 01, 2014 | Amit Singh  Web Exclusives,Pharmaceutical patents

Patents in India are granted to encourage inventions and to secure that it is worked on a commercial scale. The Indian Patent Act ensures that a Patentee should not be able to enjoy a monopoly for the importation of the patented article. The Patent Act provides measures by way of compulsory licensing (CL) to ensure that the patents do not impede the protection of public health and nutrition and the patent rights are not abused by the patentee. The CL therefore serves to strike balance between two disparate objectives- rewarding patentees for their invention and making the patented products, particularly pharmaceutical products, available to large population in developing and under developed countries at cheaper and affordable cost.

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Rural Post offices as the Linking Bridge for Unreached Farmers of India
S. K. Dubey,
R. R. Burman,
J. P. Sharma,
K. Vijairaghavan,
V. Sangeetha
H. S. Gupta

October 01, 2014 | S. K. Dubey  Web Exclusives,Post Office linkage

Linking the agricultural farmers of India with technology and institution has always been the priority since the planned development of the country. In this direction, several experiments using different methods and means of communication have been done. Since sixties, a large number of studies were conducted on farmers and extension interaction, and it was mostly focused on the communication behaviour of these two important elements. Most of the Indian reports reveal diverse communication channels/sources utilized in the different stages of the innovation decision process. It was found that personal cosmopolite channels were more important and followed by personal localite channel at the knowledge stage. Similarly, importance of these channels/sources was also recognized at persuasion stage and at decision making stage in the innovation decision process.

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From 74th CAA to SMART cities
Bhanu Joshi

October 01, 2014 | Bhanu Joshi  Web Exclusives,Smart cities

From 2001 to 2011, India’s urban population increased by 9 million. According to 2011 Census, 31per cent of India is urbanised, the first time since independence where the absolute population growth of urban is higher than the rural. The pace of India’s urbanisation, though argued by many scholars as slow, is bound to increase the stress on our already overstretched cities.

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National Food Security Act: Way Forward to Success
Deepti Goel
Mantosh Kumar

December 01, 2013 | Deepti Goel, Mantosh Kumar  Web Exclusives,Food Security

Despite ensuring ample availability of food, existence of food insecurity at the micro-level in the country has remained a formidable challenge for India. The recently introduced National Food Security Act (NFSA) aims to address this and marks a paradigm shift in addressing the problem of food security—from the current welfare approach to a rights based approach.

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The Performance of Khadi and Village Industries (KVIs) in India
Dr. Kandarpa Kumar Barman
Biswajit Das

December 01, 2013 | Dr. Kandarpa Kumar Barman, Biswajit Das  Web Exclusives,KVIC

The paper is based on secondary data, collected from Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), Govt. Of India and attempts to explore the performance of Khadi and Village Industries (KVIs) in India during the period 1994-2010 with respects to the performance variables like production, employment and sales. The statistical tools like percentage, compound growth rate and correlation coefficient has been used to study the association between the variables. Also, the projection has been made in respect of the performance variables through the use of least square principles.

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Housing Credit Led Growth in India during the Period 2000-2012*
Dr S.S. Sangwan

December 01, 2013 | Dr S.S. Sangwan  Web Exclusives,Bank Credit

The contribution of housing & construction sector in the GDP of India has almost doubled during 2000-2011 with synchronisation in growth rates of the two. The modern housing in India has mainly been confined to urban areas as revealed by census. The policy changes since 1998 with rebate on interest and repayment of principal of housing loans. As a result , the share of credit for housing in GDP increased from 2 % as on March in 2000 to about 8% as on 2008 and thereafter. The comparison between the annual growth rates of housing loans from SCBs and GDP clearly depicts the former as a pull factor for the growth of the economy during the study period.

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Public Private Partnership
Garima Wahi

November 01, 2013 | Garima Wahi  Web Exclusives,PPP

According to the United Kingdom Commission on Public Private Partnerships, ‘A Public Private Partnership (PPP) is a risk-sharing relationship between the public and private sectors based upon a shared aspiration to bring about a desired public policy outcome’. In the case of infrastructure, PPP generally refers to the Concession or Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contracts, or any variant of them, i.e., contracts where risks and responsibilities transferred to the private sector are much wider than in traditional public projects. Concession (BOT) is an exclusive right granted by the Government Authority, under which private sector builds an infrastructure project, operates it and eventually transfers the project to the government. Company continues to run the facility, and the government acts as the regulator, while being the owner of the facility.

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Role of the State in Partnerships
Dr. Manisha Verma

November 01, 2013 | Dr. Manisha Verma  Web Exclusives,Partnership

An emerging feature in public policy circles around the world has been the increasing incidence of State agencies entering into various forms of partnerships and coalitions with non-State actors and agencies including the private sector, NGOs, civil society organizations and academicians ostensibly to benefit from their wide and diverse resources in fulfilment of public goals. While some analysts believe that this implies a ‘decline of the State’ with the State ceding its powers to non-State actors, others are of the view that this in fact indicates a transformation towards a more commanding role of the State while benefitting from a wider knowledge base. Proponents of the New Public Governance hold that meaning of the term ‘governance’ has also been undergoing several changes in its interpretation and inference in response to the challenges being posed in the present milieu.

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Eurasian Integration:
Significance for India
Ehtesham Khurshid

November 01, 2013 | Ehtesham Khurshid  Web Exclusives,Eurasia

Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian foreign policy has placed Eurasian integration or integration of the former Soviet states on top of its agenda. This idea has dominated most Presidential elections in Russia since 1996, not only because of its popularity among the masses. It is important to note that President Vladimir Putin in 2005, in his address to the federal assembly referred to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and introduced the concept of a new integration project for Eurasia, stressing the need for greater economic cooperation amongst the post Soviet states. However, this idea championed by Putin was essentially the brainchild of the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev who in his speech at the Moscow University in 1994, suggested the creation of an Eurasian Union. In a nut shell, he talked about a political and economic union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and other post-Soviet states. The idea was based upon the integration of the European Union

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Surrogacy Laws In India
Sanjeev Sirohi

November 01, 2013 | Sanjeev Sirohi  Web Exclusives,Surrogacy

Since last few years the use of surrogacy has gained currency in not only India but the world over. Yet we must not forget that India along with Russia , Ukraine and certain states of the US are among the few countries that allow commercial surrogacy. It is imperative to understand first what exactly it means . Surrogacy basically refers to a mutually agreed contract in which a woman carries a pregnancy in lieu of money or anything else agreed upon for another couple who want a child but the woman is either infertile or physically incapable of carrying a developed foetus . Let me bring out here that the word surrogate is derived from Latin term “surrogatus” ( substituted ) which basically means “appointed to act in the place of” .

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Disinvestment and
Indian Public Sector Enterprises
Gagan Singh

November 01, 2013 | Gagan Singh  Web Exclusives,Economy

The growth story of India during the last two decades has been exhilarating barring a period of economic slowdown which persisted from 2008-10. The inclusive growth model-adopted by the government during the 11th Plan strives for educational, financial, technological and political inclusion of masses which are being termed as ‘demographic dividend’ by economists of the world-may take the credit for persistent growth of Indian economy even in the global slowdown phase. The emergence of civil society and NGOs during the recent past and the passage of important bills like Food Security, RTI, RTE and Pension Funds Regulatory Authority bills are live manifestation of inclusive growth philosophy of the government at centre. Some states are growing but not developing as far as other social parameters are concerned while others may not seem to be growing but on parallel have good governance. There is a need to compare and analyse the growth and development performance of the states and how governance has an impact on these variables.

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Growth and Development Dynamics
of Indian States: A Comparison
Dr. Sanjay Tiwari

October 01, 2013 | Dr. Sanjay Tiwari  Web Exclusives,Growth

The growth story of India during the last two decades has been exhilarating barring a period of economic slowdown which persisted from 2008-10. The inclusive growth model-adopted by the government during the 11th Plan strives for educational, financial, technological and political inclusion of masses which are being termed as ‘demographic dividend’ by economists of the world-may take the credit for persistent growth of Indian economy even in the global slowdown phase. The emergence of civil society and NGOs during the recent past and the passage of important bills like Food Security, RTI, RTE and Pension Funds Regulatory Authority bills are live manifestation of inclusive growth philosophy of the government at centre. Some states are growing but not developing as far as other social parameters are concerned while others may not seem to be growing but on parallel have good governance. There is a need to compare and analyse the growth and development performance of the states and how governance has an impact on these variables.

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CPRs in Everyday Life of Rural People in Assam
Dr Gautam Purkayastha

October 01, 2013 | Dr Gautam Purkayastha  Web Exclusives,Poverty

Common Property Resources (CPRs) provide a regular source of income and employment to a large section of society across age groups. It acts as a safety net for the poor, particularly during the lean season, drought or floods. It is a vital and reliable source of livelihood for elderly people who cannot work as wage earners. It offers equal opportunities to different members of a disadvantaged family to supplement the family income. In addition to main earning members, children, women, elderly people and even the partially disabled find opportunities to collect non-timber forest products. CPRs help to improve economic efficiency by providing alternative income generating activities, direct inputs to the home for daily needs and agriculture and acts as a safety measure to carry on during the calamities.

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The Collegium Syndrome: A Critical Appraisal
Saurabh Sinha

October 01, 2013 | Saurabh Sinha  Web Exclusives,Collegium

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” Lord Acton

The above statement by Lord Acton needs to be reframed and expanded in the present context of governance as follows:-

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely-Financially, Intellectually, and Morally”.

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Commercialization of Agriculture in Arunachal Pradesh
Dr. Rajesh Verma

September 01, 2013 | Dr. Rajesh Verma  Web Exclusives, Agriculture

Arunachal Pradesh is situated on the eastern most corner of India having international borders with Bhutan, China and Burma. It is the largest state among all the north eastern states, namely Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim. Its total geographical area is 83743 sq km with the population density just over 17. Total population of the state, according to the Census of India 2011 is 1, 382,611, among which the tribal population is about 64 percent. The size of rural population is 10, 69,165 while the urban population is 3, 13, 446 which is 77.33 percent and 22.67 percent respectively.

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Tribal Land Rights and Education
Dr. L. Rathakrishnan & K. Ravi Kumar

September 01, 2013 | Dr. L. Rathakrishnan & K. Ravi Kumar  Web Exclusives, Tribal Rights

Basic education is the primary agent either to improve the immediate living condition or to increase the potential for future living. The Millennium Development Goals has emphasized to ensure that all girls and boys must complete a full course of primary education and that gender disparity is eliminated at all levels of education by 2015. As a natural follow-up action, the Parliament of India enacted The Child Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (RTE Act 2009) and it came into force in April 1, 2010. This study attempts to explain how methods adopted in fifth schedule of Constitution of India based on colonial tribal policy of isolation and status quo to guarantee right to land repressed right to education of present day tribal and non-tribal students of Santhal Parganas division of Jharkhand State.

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Fighting“Classroom Hunger”- Achievements of
“Mid Day Meal Scheme”
Dr.Gracious James

September 01, 2013 | Dr.Gracious James  Web Exclusives, Mid Day Meal

The National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) which is popularly known as the Mid-day Meal Scheme was launched by the Government of India in 1995. NP-NSPE states that it aims to address “classroom hunger” and encourage poor children, belonging to disadvantaged sections, to attend school regularly and help them concentrate on classroom activities. The mid-day meal programme is a multi-faceted programme of the Government of India that, among other things, also seeks to address issues of food security, lack of nutrition and access to education on a nationwide scale. The Scheme is the world’s largest school feeding programme reaching out to about 12 crore children in over 12.65 lakh schools/EGS centres across the country.

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Challenges in Slum Upgradation: Need Innovative Approaches
Dr. Adesh Chaturvedi

September 01, 2013 | Dr. Adesh Chaturvedi  Web Exclusives, Growth

India’s economy has grown by an average of 8 % annually over the past few years, and yet a quarter of its population of 1.1 billion still lives on less than a dollar per day. The number of people living in slums in India has grown up rapidly in recent past and more than the population of Britain. Besides health, education and wedges, housing to the urban poor is a big challenge and cause of concern for the governments. Central and State Governments are trying to provide housing to the people from low-income-groups/slums of urban areas.

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Human Development Thought: Enhancing Relevance in the Present Era
Dr Rahul Gupta,Dr Nikhil Zaveri

September 01, 2013 | Dr Rahul Gupta,Dr Nikhil Zaveri  Web Exclusives,Education

The roots of Human Development thought are found in “Swasti mantra” (a prayer seeking Blessings for all) by Adi Shankaracharya who shows great concern for human well being in the following prayer -

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Problems of Aged in Changing Indian Scenario
Dr.(Smt) Shakuntala.C. Shettar

August 01, 2013 | Dr.Shakuntala.C. Shettar  Web Exclusives, Social issues

Population ageing is a global issue, which has been recognized to have implications on the health care and social welfare systems. The process whereby the proportion of children in the population decreases and those of old persons increases is known as the “ageing of population”. The global population of elderly has constantly been increasing during the second half of the last century. This has been possible due to easy availability of life saving drugs, control of famines, and various communicable diseases, better awareness and supply of nutrition and health facilities and comparatively better overall standard of living.

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State, Democracy and Development: Institutional Perspectives
B.Chandrasekaran

August 01, 2013 | B.Chandrasekaran  Web Exclusives, Democracy

The evolution of any civilisation depends on the formations and functioning of its institutional systems, the interplay of which allows the constituents of the society to pursue prosperity and happiness. The nature of these institutional systems and structures provide the fountainhead for ideas like democracy to germinate and flourish. However, as witnessed all over the world especially after the World War-II, preaching and eulogising about democracy as the ideal political system is much easier than practising and adopting it with all its limitations-political and otherwise.

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Inclusive Planning in Context of Urban Poor
Dr. Ambey Kumar Srivastava

August 01, 2013 | Dr. Ambey Kumar Srivastava  Web Exclusives, finance

There can be few ways to get success and many reasons of failure. But unfortunately, human being has the tendency to exaggerate success and read failures as ‘gaps’. The same thing has happened with the ‘planning’ of our country, which is guided through five year planning pattern. How the situation of different sectors is visualized, conceptualized and planned can be best understood through the Five Year Plans (FYPs) of India, which gives an account of the post independence development of the country.

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Ethnic Fratricide and the Autonomous Councils of Assam
Navaneeta Deori

August 01, 2013 | Navaneeta Deori  Web Exclusives, Fratricide, Bodoland

Assam is idyllically located as an entry point to Northeast India. It has a blend of population belonging from diverse cultures and beliefs. However troubled relations have emerged between different communities (tribes and non-tribes) of the region which have been exacerbated by various militant activities.

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Public TV Broadcasting in Asia-Pacific
K P Madhu 

July 13, 2013 | K P Madhu  Web Exclusives, PSB, Media, Doordarshan

TV broadcasting in India is about 54 years old. UNESCO promoted it as a great tool for education and so it was primarily school television telecast by All India Radio. It was initially limited to Delhi. Teachers and, at times, students in the studio beamed in black and white to the few TV sets on an experimental basis. Regular telecast started only in 1965.

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Dynamics of world diamond trade change following shortage of gemstones
Africa’s beneficiation programme chokes supplies to India, China gets upper hand 
TN Ashok 

July 01, 2013 | TN Ashok  Web Exclusives

The fast changing patterns in global diamond trade caused by the acute shortage of the gem stone has considerably altered the position of India and China as the major cutting and polishing centres besides hitting them in trade revenues.

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The spot-fixing scandal 2013- Are we short-changing change? 
Anujaya Krishna 

July 01, 2013 | Anujaya Krishna  Web Exclusives

Howard Cosell hit the nail on the head when he stated, “Sports is human life in microcosm”. Have you ever witnessed the ebb and flow of the Mexican wave in a stadium? The crests and troughs of a graph charting heartbeats during a game? The shrill yet inebriating sound of the vuvuzela? The sheer passion that is enthused in all who watch the game even though they may not be playing it?

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Adaptation and Mitigation strategies of Climate change: A Serious Concern 
Dr. K. P. Vipin Chandran & SandhyaP

July 01, 2013 | Dr. K. P. Vipin Chandran & Sandhya  Web Exclusives,

Climate change is a global environmental problem which has been receiving intense political attention both at domestic and international levels. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines ‘climate change’ as a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

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Citizen Voices to Promote Environmental Governance: Towards an Equitable and Inclusive Development
Arvind L Sha & J Jangal

June 01, 2013 | Arvind L Sha & J Jangal  Web Exclusives, Enironment

Environmental Governance is the means by which society determines and acts on goals and priorities related to the management of natural resources. This includes the rules, both formal and informal, that govern human behaviour in decision-making processes as well as the decisions themselves. Appropriate legal frameworks on the global, regional, national and local level are a prerequisite for good environmental governance.

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Reaping the Information Dividend through Social Media
Dr. Sanjay Tiwari

June 01, 2013 | Dr. Sanjay Tiwari  Web Exclusives, Social Media

India is on a threshold of becoming a lead economy of the world as her demographic dividend will be the highest-i.e. the largest population between the age group 18-59 years - within not so distant future. While talking of the return from this vast working human resource known as demographic dividend, it would be pertinent to look into another big opportunity which has recently emerged and likely to grow in what is termed as information driven economy.

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