This paper analyses employment trends and addresses the problem of creating decent and productive employment in the non-agricultural sector during the first decade of the 21st century. Its primary interest is to examine the transition from informal employment in the unorganised sector towards formal employment in the non-agricultural organised sector. There has been a slight structural shift in employment away from agriculture towards the non-manufacturing sector.

The India Human Development Report 2011 undertakes a disaggregated analysis of a large set of indicators and is unhesitating in its criticism of our failures in human development outcomes even while recognising that there is empirical evidence of achievement in many dimensions. The main fi ndings of the report point out that the states are converging on important indicators of human functioning and that the indicators among the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and Muslims are converging with the national average.

For a country which is home to one-third of the world's poor, it has been the most striking failure of our public health system to reach out to them. It is not that some of the social or religious groups in particular lack access to quality healthcare facilities, but that the poor in general get excluded. They are often forced to incur high out-of-pocket expenditure on health which only adds to their debt burden.