Jul 31 2014 : Mirror (Pune)

The great raconteur





When I don't write I feel as if I am unclothed, like I haven't had a bath. Like I haven't had my first drink: Manto punemirror.feedback@gmail.com

Describing the squalid chawl in which he lived in Bombay, Saadat Hasan Manto writes, “The place was so full of bed bugs that they fell from the roof like rain.“ Nor were his working conditions any better. Mr Nazir, he says, hired him for a salary of forty rupees a month. “After he discovered that I was sleeping in the office, he began cutting two rupees from my salary towards rent every month. When he got me another job alongside, as a munshi at the Imperial Studios, on a salary of forty rupees, Mr Nazir cut my salary from “Musawwar“ by half to twenty rupees.“This extract is from The Story of My Wedding in Manto's Why I Write, a lively collection of his non-fiction, translated and edited by Aakar Patel. (Tranquebar 2014). Patel writes, “It is difficult to think of better literature in our languages than his... Living and working in Bombay was the happiest phase of Manto's life. If it had not been for Partition, he would have lived and worked here till he died...It isn't surprising that he left Bombay, given his young family and the barbarism of those days, but the story of why he didn't return remains a mystery.“
The editor tells us that most of the pieces in the book were written for newspapers, and, possibly except for two, none have been translated before. He adds, “I have edited, clipped, trimmed and rewritten a few of them, perhaps more than I should have. For this, Manto will forgive me.“ This is an intriguing comment. In what way did he rewrite?
Nevertheless, for the most part the editor's comments on individual stories and on Manto's life are informative and incisive, and add to our understanding of an extraordinary person and writer. “Manto accepts the fault and the culpability of his co-religionists first.
This is something very few of us can still do in the subcontinent.“
In Pakistan, Manto was surprised to find himself preside over the annual Iqbal Day.
“Surprising because he had no love for the Islamic State... But the one thing he had in com mon with the man he was eulogising was that they were both persecuted. Iqbal for his heresies (he wrote a complaint against god, a great poem called Shikwa) and Manto because he rejected conventionalism of every sort... Both men ... became heroes after their death. Iqbal for those who loved Pakistan and Manto for those who hated it.“
Some of Manto's fiercest pieces, such as God is gracious in Pakistan were deeply anti-fundamentalist. “But now, praise god! We can find neither poet nor musician. Allah help us, their music was the most debased thing. Are humans meant to sing? Sitting with their tanpuras and wailing away. And singing what?... Ever since Pakistan has been cleansed of poets, the very air around us has become pure and unpolluted...Pictures of naked women and statues of them sculpted in those days...'Mr Artist, sir! How well you have reproduced the female form...These breasts...' Lord have mercy, what did I just say.
Please excuse me while I wash my mouth.“
So why does Manto write? “The most important reason is that I'm addicted to writing, just as I am to drinking. When I don't write I feel as if I am unclothed, like I haven't had a bath. Like I haven't had my first drink.“
The editor, Aakar Patel has worked in the textile industry and in journalism, and has edited newspapers in English and Gujarati, and oversaw the Urdu daily Inquilab. He also writes columns for papers from Pakistan.

Jul 31 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Employment Growing at Double the Rate of Population: Economic Census

NEW DELHI OUR BUREAU





Uttar Pradesh was the top employment generator among big states in eight years ended 2013, creating jobs at over double the national average rate, according to the Sixth Economic Census released on Wednesday.The number of employed in the country rose 34.35% in eight years to 12.77 crore. “That means that it had grown at an annual rate of over 4% when the population is growing at 2%,” National Statistical Commission chairman Pronab Sen said while releasing the report.

The census does not include employment in agriculture, public administration, defence and compulsory social security services activities. The employment growth would have been lower if these sectors were included.

In Uttar Pradesh, the number of employed rose over 75% during the same period. It was fourth overall in job creation, behind Manipur, Assam and Sikkim. Gujarat was placed ninth.

Maharashtra was the biggest employer, accounting for 11.26% jobs in the country, followed by Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
About a quarter of work force nationally were women. The activities covered in the Sixth Economic Census have a share of about 86% in total GDP of the country.
The economic census results will be used for GDP calculation as well, as this helps with the small and unorganised sector manufacturing data, said an official at the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi).

“We will use it to carry out enterprise surveys, used by us for GDP calculation,” he said.

The provisional sixth economic census results showed there were 58.47 million establishments in the country engaged in different economic activities, excluding crop production, plantation, public administration, defence and compulsory social security services.

There was 41.7% rise in number of establishments.

Nearly 60% of these establishments were in rural areas.

Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra
The provisional sixth economic cen sus results showed there were 58.47 mil lion establishments in the country en gaged in different ec onomic activities, excluding crop pro duction, plantation, public administra tion, defence and compulsory social security services.
There was 41.7% rise in number of estab lishments.
Nearly 60% of these establishments were in rural areas.
Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh together accounted for about 48% of the total number of establishments in the country. The average employment per establishment, however, fell in the eight year period from 2.3 to 2.1 worker.
“This suggests that employment opportunities may be declining despite increase in establishments.

Labor-intensive activities may be on a decline,” said the official.

Northeastern states reported significant jump in both the number of establishments and employment creation, suggesting improvement in economic activities. Manipur saw a 109.37% increase in the number of establishments between 2005 and 2013.

In terms of growth in the last eight years of establishments, against a national average of 41.73%. The newly formed state Telangana experienced a 79% jump in eight years.

UP housed 11.36% of country’s total establishments, followed by Maharashtra and West Bengal.

Since these are just provisional estimates, they do not provide activity-wise or size-wise break up of data. For the first time, data for handloom and handicraft was included in the economic census, which accounted for 3.75% of the total establishments of the country.

Jul 31 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

34% jump in job growth in 8 yrs: Census

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





The number of people employed in the country rose by 34.35% to 12.77 crore in eight years to 2013, reveals the Sixth Economic Census-2013.The employment in urban areas increased by 37.46% to 6.14 crore, while in rural India the growth was 31.59% to 6.62 crore between 2005 and 2013.

The proportion of women in total workforce increased to 25.56% in 2013 from about 20% in 2005. In urban areas, the proportion of female
workers was 19.8% compared to 30.9% in rural areas.
The economic census does not include those employed in agriculture, public administration, defense and compul sory social security services activities. Among the states, Maharashtra was on top of the ladder with maximum number of employees at 1.43 crore, followed by Uttar Pradesh at 1.37 crore, West Bengal at 1.15 crore, Tamil Nadu 1.08 crore and Gujarat at 90.63 lakh.
Among the Union Territories, Delhi has the maximum number of employees at 29.84 lakh followed by Chandigarh at 2.38 lakh and Puducherry at 2.17 lakh.

In terms of percentage growth in total employment during the period, number of
workers grew at higher rate of 83.29% in Manipur, followed by 78.84% in Assam, 77.14% in Sikkim, 75.26% in Uttar Pradesh and 68.81% in Himachal Pradesh.
On findings of the survey, National Statistical Commission chairman Pronab Sen said, “The growth in employment at 34% in eight years is a good rate. That means that it had grown at an annual rate of over 4% when the population is growing at 2%.“ The country's population was over 121 crore in 2011, according to 2011 Population Census.

Jul 31 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

WATCH IT - Antibiotics used to boost growth in chicken: CSE





Each time you eat chicken, you could also be consuming a cocktail of antibiotics. A lab study released by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found antibiotic residues in 40% of chicken samples collected from Delhi and NCR outlets.While the amount of antibiotics found in each sample was not very high, experts said regular consumers of such meat could be in danger of developing antibiotic resistance. In other words, eating chicken with drug traces over a period of time could make you immune to impor tant antibiotics prescribed to treat common illnesses.
The study said it had evidence of large-scale and reckless use of antibiotics by poultry owners, which can also lead to antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains in the chicken itself.
CSE said it conducted the study after being alerted by doctors, including Bangalore-based cardiac surgeon Devi Shetty , about a rising trend of antibiotic resistance among patients.
CSE said 22.9% of the 70samples collected contained residues of one antibiotic while 17.1% had more than one.
chicken sample purchased from Gurgaon was found to have a cocktail of as many as three antibiotics.The CSE report, released on Wednesday, said poultry owners routinely pumped antibiotics into chicken during their short life of about 35 to 42 days, to promote growth so that they look bigger and also to treat or prevent infections. India has no law to regulate antibiotic use in the poultry sector.
CSE’s research team tested chicken samples at its Pollution Monitoring Laboratory. Three tissues in each sample were tested — muscle, kidney and liver.
Residues of five of the six antibiotics were found in all three tissues of the samples in the range of 3.37 to 131.75 micrograms per kg.
According to Dr Shetty, after a researcher conducted a study on antibiotic resistance at his hospital, they found about 10% of the patients to be resistant to common antibiotics.
“These are people who probably haven’t taken antibiotics before. They are villagers. We started thinking it could be caused from the food they are eating. That is why I approached CSE to do a study and now the data says it all,” he said on a live video chat from Bangalore during the presentation of the findings.
Dr Shetty also said that the likelihood of becoming antibiotic resistant after eating chicken depends on how often we eat chicken. “If you are eating poultry chicken on a daily
basis then you could be at a higher risk. That is why I asked my family to get only village reared chicken not the poultry ones,” he said.Dr Randeep Guleria, head pulmonary medicine at AIIMS said he wasn’t surprised that antibiotics were entering the food chain through poultry.
“The findings aren’t surprising. It’s a big concern and in the last few years after the NDM 1 superbug scare, the medical community has been raising concern about indiscriminate use of antibiotics in poultry and agriculture,” Dr Guleria said.
Said Chandra Bhushan, CSE’s deputy director general, “Our study is only the tip of the
iceberg. There are many more antibiotics that are rampantly used that the lab has not tested,” Bhushan said.When contacted by TOI, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said he would react to the findings only after reading the entire lab report.
CSE also conducted a review of 13 research studies on antibiotic resistance (ABR) in India since 2002 and found that ABR levels were very high for ciprofloxacin and doxycycline, both used for illnesses such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and others.
High level residues of the same antibiotics were found in chicken samples tested by CSE. The problem according to CSE is compounded by the fact that antibiotics that are essential for humans are now being used in the poultry industry.

2014 Human Development Report

Entitled Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience, the Report provides a fresh perspective on vulnerability and proposes ways to strengthen resilience. Persistent vulnerability threatens human development. And unless it is systematically tackled by policies and social norms, progress will be neither equitable nor sustainable.

Levels in human development continues to rise – yet the pace has slowed for all regions and progress has been highly uneven. The lower human development groups appear to be improving at a higher rate – grounds for optimism that the gap between higher and lower human development groups is narrowing.

In the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific region, and Latin America and the Caribbean, average annual growth rate in HDI dropped by about half over 2008–2013 compared to 2000–2008. Threats such as financial crises, fluctuations in food prices, natural disasters and violent conflict significantly impede progress.

Overall inequality has declined slightly in most regions, as measured by the Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). This has been driven mainly by improvements in health in recent years. However high disparities in education persist. The Report shows that older generations continue to struggle with illiteracy, while younger ones are having difficulty making the leap from primary to secondary schooling. The highest levels of education inequality are found in South Asia, the Arab states and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Report calls for stronger collective action, as well as better global coordination and commitment to shoring up resilience, in response to vulnerabilities that are increasingly global in origin and impact. To increase support for national programmes and open up policy space for nations to adapt universalism to specific country conditions, the Report calls for “an international consensus on universal social protection” to be included in the Post-2015 agenda.

2014 Human Development Index (HDI)

Very high human development	High human development	Medium human development	Low human development
1 Norway	50 Uruguay	103 Maldives	145 Nepal
2 Australia	51 Bahamas	103 Mongolia	146 Pakistan
3 Switzerland	51 Montenegro	103 Turkmenistan	147 Kenya
4 Netherlands	53 Belarus	106 Samoa	148 Swaziland
5 United States	54 Romania	107 Palestine, State of	149 Angola
6 Germany	55 Libya	108 Indonesia	150 Myanmar
7 New Zealand	56 Oman	109 Botswana	151 Rwanda
8 Canada	57 Russian Federation	110 Egypt	152 Cameroon
9 Singapore	58 Bulgaria	111 Paraguay	152 Nigeria
10 Denmark	59 Barbados	112 Gabon	154 Yemen
11 Ireland	60 Palau	113 Bolivia (Plurinational State of)	155 Madagascar
12 Sweden	61 Antigua and Barbuda	114 Moldova (Republic of)	156 Zimbabwe
13 Iceland	62 Malaysia	115 El Salvador	157 Papua New Guinea
14 United Kingdom	63 Mauritius	116 Uzbekistan	157 Solomon Islands
15 Hong Kong, China (SAR)	64 Trinidad and Tobago	117 Philippines	159 Comoros
15 Korea (Republic of)	65 Lebanon	118 South Africa	159 Tanzania (United Republic of)
17 Japan	65 Panama	118 Syrian Arab Republic	161 Mauritania
18 Liechtenstein	67 Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)	120 Iraq	162 Lesotho
19 Israel	68 Costa Rica	121 Guyana	163 Senegal
20 France	69 Turkey	121 Viet Nam	164 Uganda
21 Austria	70 Kazakhstan	123 Cape Verde	165 Benin
21 Belgium	71 Mexico	124 Micronesia (Federated States of)	166 Sudan
21 Luxembourg	71 Seychelles	125 Guatemala	166 Togo
24 Finland	73 Saint Kitts and Nevis	125 Kyrgyzstan	168 Haiti
25 Slovenia	73 Sri Lanka	127 Namibia	169 Afghanistan
26 Italy	75 Iran (Islamic Republic of)	128 Timor-Leste	170 Djibouti
27 Spain	76 Azerbaijan	129 Honduras	171 Côte d'Ivoire
28 Czech Republic	77 Jordan	129 Morocco	172 Gambia
29 Greece	77 Serbia	131 Vanuatu	173 Ethiopia
30 Brunei Darussalam	79 Brazil	132 Nicaragua	174 Malawi
31 Qatar	79 Georgia	133 Kiribati	175 Liberia
32 Cyprus	79 Grenada	133 Tajikistan	176 Mali
33 Estonia	82 Peru	135 India	177 Guinea-Bissau
34 Saudi Arabia	83 Ukraine	136 Bhutan	178 Mozambique
35 Lithuania	84 Belize	136 Cambodia	179 Guinea
35 Poland	84 The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia	138 Ghana	180 Burundi
37 Andorra	86 Bosnia and Herzegovina	139 Lao People's Democratic Republic	181 Burkina Faso
37 Slovakia	87 Armenia	140 Congo	182 Eritrea
39 Malta	88 Fiji	141 Zambia	183 Sierra Leone
40 United Arab Emirates	89 Thailand	142 Bangladesh	184 Chad
41 Chile	90 Tunisia	142 Sao Tome and Principe	185 Central African Republic
41 Portugal	91 China	144 Equatorial Guinea	186 Congo (Democratic Republic of the)
43 Hungary	91 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines		187 Niger
44 Bahrain	93 Algeria
44 Cuba	93 Dominica
46 Kuwait	95 Albania
47 Croatia	96 Jamaica
48 Latvia	97 Saint Lucia
49 Argentina	98 Colombia
	98 Ecuador
	100 Suriname
	100 Tonga
	102 Dominican Republic

 You are requested to download the report. Source: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/events/2014/july/HDR2014.html