56th Annual Conference of Indian Society of Labour Economics

18-20 December, 2014Venue: BIT Mesra, Ranchi, Jharkhand, INDIA.

 56^th ISLE Annual Conference:
The 56th Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) will be held during 18-20 December, 2014.

The Themes for the 56^th ISLE Conference:

• Inter-linkages between Formal and Informal Labour Processes
• Demographic dividend: Challenges of Employment and Employability
• Industrial Relations in India: Sectoral and Regional Patterns

The summaries of the selected papers will be brought out as a publication of conference summaries to be distributed among the Conference participants, along with a CD of the complete papers. Selected and revised papers based on peer reviews will be published in subsequent issues of the Indian Journal of Labour Economics. 

Best Paper Awards: Two awards have been instituted for best paper writers, below 40 years: Ruddar Datt Memorial Award and Sanjay Thakur Young Labour Economist Award (carrying prize money of Rs. 10,000 each). Those willing to be considered for the awards are requested to send their date of birth along with the single authored paper before the deadline.

Submission of Papers: Those who wish to contribute papers may send their papers along with a summary of about 1000 words to: the Hon. Secretary, Indian Society of Labour Economics, NIDM Building, IIPA Campus, I.P. Estate, New Delhi - 110002, India. The soft copies in MS Word may be emailed to: conference.isle@gmail.com

Conference Brochure

INDIAN SOCIETY OF LABOUR ECONOMICS
c/o Institute for Human Development
NIDM Building, 3rd Floor, IIPA Campus, I.P. Estate, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, New Delhi - 110 002, India
Phones: +91 11 23358166/23321610
Fax: + 91 11 23321610
 
For further details and updates:
please visit: www.isleijle.org or 
email to: conference.isle@gmail.com

Aug 01 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

How GM Crops can Eliminate Hunger





The government has erred in putting field trials of genetically-modified (GM) food crops on hold. The country requires genetically-engineered crops to meet the rising demand for food and non-food crops as incomes rise. Let's not forget, farm output surged after India adopted the best biotechnology in terms of high-yielding varieties in the 1960s. Apparently , opposition from two Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) outfits about the possible harm from the new technology has forced the NDA government to backtrack on field trials for 13 GM crops. The trials have been cleared by the apex body for approval of GM crops, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). To quell such fears, India must develop the competence to carry out independent testing for all GM crops to assess the likely negative effects. The testing facilities should be housed in universities and dedicated laboratories.Environment minister Prakash Javadekar says the recommendations of the GEAC are not binding on the governme nt. In fact, the GEAC attracted criticism after a parliamentary panel's finding that it had been pressured to approve Bt Brinjal in 2010. Rightly, a Supreme Court-appointed technical expert committee wants a robust regulatory mechanism in India.
The point is that people entrusted with regulation should not have any financial interests in the GM industry .
Therefore, the setting up of a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority makes eminent sense. The Bill has been pending for over a decade now. The government must secure Parliament's approval to set up the authority fast. However, repairing the regulatory system does not mean halting field trials. The trials will pave the way for commercialisation of GM food crops, and help usher in a second green revolution.

Aug 01 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Entrepreneurs go Back to IIM Classrooms

SREERADHA D BASU

MUMBAI





As many as 41 students in latest batch at 7 IIMs are in various stages of starting up

In a remarkable display of India's growing fervour for entrepreneur ship, at least 41 students in the new batch at seven IIMs are in various stages of starting up and running new businesses even as they pursue their MBAs, exclusive data collated by ET shows.This means that an unusually high 2% of students in the new batch at these IIMs are already entrepreneurs.
“There has indeed been a spurt this year in the number of such student entrepreneurs at IIMs,“ IIM-Kozhikode Director Debashis Chatterjee said.
These new IIM students have built startups in mobile apps development, horticulture plantations, event management, solar-powered equipment, food-related businesses and coaching schools.
“The number of people in their 20s who are setting up their own ventures is at a new high,“ says Mukul Singhal, principal, SAIF Partners.
Global B-schools are giving a major push to foster entrepreneurship and domestic counterparts are also placing a similar premium on student startups.
“Entrepreneurial students are like allrounders in a cricket team. They are able to fully appreciate and participate in the whole process of creation of value...this is the ultimate goal of managing an enterprise,“ Chatterjee said.
At the Kozhikode B-school alone, around 15 students in the batch that joined in June are entrepreneurs. The batch at IIM-Kozhikode includes, among others, Bullipe Reddy who runs Prestoo, that builds educational games to teach and test high school students' concepts of physics, maths and chemistry; Krishnan Jeesha who provides outof-home advertising solutions to businesses; and Sumit Kumar Shaw, who has set up a coaching institute as well as a tour and travel company.
IIM-Calcutta has seven such student-entrepreneurs in its new batch; IIM-Bangalore has two and IIM-Ahmedabad has another six. Among the newer IIMs, IIM-Raipur has five such students while IIM-Rohtak and IIM-Shillong have three and four, respectively.
For these young entrepreneurs, an MBA comes with several advantages, most importantly , the network these top schools can provide and the opportunity to brush up their knowledge in areas that are lacking. And an IIM tag certainly doesn't hurt for those wanting to raise money for their own ventures.
“All other things being equal, we would prefer someone with a solid educational background.
A qualification from an IIM or an IIT does lend a bit more credibility when talking to a VC (venture capital fund) or an investor,“ says Abhay Pandey , MD, Sequoia Capital India. “Earlier, the entrepreneurial ecosystem was not so vibrant. Now it's great that people are taking a risk to work towards a much larger outcome,“ he adds.
So, if Aditya Pangtey of IIMCalcutta owns a third of Indiebazaar.com, a managed marketplace for Indian independent artists and designers, his peers at the Joka institute in clude Nikesh Vora, who found t ed AlterEgo, an e-comm ven j ture in the personalised gifting domain; and Pranshu Kacholia, a BITS-Pilani grad who cofounded a mobile app development startup called Droid Studios. His Android app saw as many as 30,000 downloads in six months. “I don't have the business or finance knowledge and that's where an MBA comes in. Also, I want to leverage IIM-Calcutta's network in the future,“ says Kacholia At IIM-Ahmedabad, students have co-founded ventures pro t viding software solutions; launched healthcare mobile t apps and app development startups; designed and prototyped a I product that harvests energy t from cooking stoves; and launched ventures aimed at addressing declining analytical abilities among school students.
Over 80% of the ventures promoted by this year's student en i trepreneurs are still operational. Many such students have partners or co-founders who l take on additional responsibilities while they are at school. The remaining 20% of student entrepreneurs, whose ventures closed f down, are keen to start something new again in the future.
“Entrepreneurship flourishes l when failure and experimentation is tolerated by societies. The i Indian society has reached a cer t tain inflection point when a new generation is not afraid of taking chances and experiment t ing,“ feels Prof Chatterjee.
In IIM-Shillong, businesses t run by students include consulting agency Innovative We; Epitome IT Coaching that focuses primarily on IT educa t tion and Xeopia Solutions, also in the same space. At IIM-Rai t pur, Pratik Suting, an aircraft maintenance engineer, ran his transcription company; Rajesh Jangam opened up a school and Satyadeo Thakur started his venture as a web hosting and designing company. In IIM-Rohtak, Pruthvi Ala, along with three friends, started a snacks business serving offices such as Accenture and IBM, which is in the process of opening more outlets in Hyderabad. His batch mate Gaurav Aggarwal uses data technologies to help small retailers grow their business.
“A good management education equips a person with necessary tools and greater perspective to analyse complex situations,“ says D Chethan of IIM-K. His interest in agriculture led him to invest in a 10-acre plot and adopt highly mechanised techniques to grow horticultural crops such as chikoo, mango, black jamun, coconut and lemon alongside fast-growing timber-yielding varieties.
Despite the success of his business, Chethan still believes in the power of an MBA.
“I intend to expand my enterprise and enter new avenues such as food processing in the future,“ says Chethan.
For IIM-Bangalore's Sourav Das, who runs a startup in the solar technology space with an IITKharagpur batchmate, the MBA is a ticket to scale up his venture to the next stage. The partners sell solar mobile phone chargers -they have sold some 500 pieces through NGOs -and Das says he needs some guidance to fine tune his business plan.
Nitisha Sethia, of IIM-A who ran her own fashionwear business called Urban Junkie entirely through Facebook and earned around Rs 5 lakh through four exhibitions, says she loved the whole experience of running her own show.

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.