A Nation Stuck Between Missing Jobs and Growth Ambitions
India grapples with a job crisis fuelled by factors including high youth unemployment, educational and skill imbalance and low female participation, among others. In their book, The Elephant Moves: India’s New Place in the World, Amitabh Kant and Amit Kapoor explore India’s economic evolution through the lens of competitiveness, stressing the need for, and challenges to, policy changes in its run to becoming a developed economy by 2047
March 01, 2024
The Rich Are Getting Richer, but the Poor Are Not Getting Poorer: T.V. Somanathan
Increasing consumption among the middle class and the poor in India is a valid policy challenge, the answer to which lies in creating more jobs, says T.V. Somanathan, finance secretary and secretary of expenditure in the Union Ministry of Finance. In an exclusive interview, he also discusses why the current income tax rates are reasonable and why he finds the 3% fiscal deficit target questionable among other issues. Edited excerpts:
Neeraj Thakur - February 29, 2024
Collaboration or Cannibalisation? That Is IT’s AI Dilemma, Says Vineet Nayar
The critical question to ask is not about jobs overall but whether Indian IT can retain its relevance by investing aggressively in AI and its application to service delivery or will it miss the turn that will cost us a lot of jobs
Vineet Nayar - December 29, 2023
At About 5–6%, Economy Won’t Collapse But It Won’t Generate Enough Jobs: Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Economist and former deputy chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia tells Neeraj Thakur that a private sector-led economy can deliver sustained GDP growth in the country. However, he is not enthused about the much-touted double-digit growth or even a range of 7–7.5% and cautions against protectionism
Neeraj Thakur - January 30, 2023
NextWealth: Finding IT Skills And Jobs Outside Urban Limits
Former Wipro employees Sridhar Mitta, Mythily Ramesh and Anand Talwai wanted to prioritise employees over profit and focus on providing meaningful employment to educated youth. It took them to Tier II and Tier III cities
Kamalika Ghosh - November 29, 2022
India Ain’t No Cheap Labour Anymore
E-economy and platform-based job discovery are making jobs accessible at great cost-benefit to employers and employees
Guruprasad Srinivasan - October 31, 2022
A Sovereign Guarantee For Jobseekers
The jobs situation in the country is grim. If the Modi government needed a reminder, India’s youth has given it in the form of Agniveer-related protests. Modi’s advisors want him to emulate the much-criticised MGNREGA scheme in urban areas along with universal basic income, an idea that Rahul Gandhi proposed in 2019. Can a job guarantee scheme hit the bull’s eye in towns and cities?
Kamalika Ghosh - June 29, 2022
What’s Cooking At Apple?
In his latest book, After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul, author Tripp Mickle, a New York Times reporter covering Apple, spoke with over 200 former and current Apple employees, its suppliers, competitors, government officials and more to find how the company has fared after Jobs’ death
June 29, 2022
iPod’s Swansong
The meteoric rise and the silent demise of the iconic iPod has left us asking one question—is it the end of the road for digital music players?
Erick Massey - May 31, 2022
Meet India’s Humane Robot Seller
Post pandemic, there has been a resurgence in factory automation but it should not happen at the cost of humans losing their jobs
Sunny Sen - October 01, 2021