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.

The Census of 2002 to identify the poor in rural areas of India was the third in a quinquennial series. However, it has been appropriately criticised. This paper elaborates on the criticisms, and proposes an alternative set of criteria and methodology for conducting the next (now overdue) census of the rural population to identify the poor.

Child labour is widespread in home-based manufacturing activities in the informal sector in most developing countries. However, very little is known of child labour in industrial outwork.

This article offers a menu of options for reform of Uttar Pradesh

This article examines the performance of the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme since its launch in mid-2005. It first provides a summary of progress in certain areas and then highlights specific weaknesses. Finally, it describes the challenges that lie ahead and suggests how these can be overcome.

Malnutrition is the underlying cause of half of under-five child deaths. So even though the proximate cause of children dying may be measles, diarrhoea, diphtheria, jaundice or malaria, the real reason is that they are so weakened by malnutrition that their small bodies are unable to withstand infection. Half of Uttar Pradesh's children (52%) were malnourished when the last National Family Health Survey (1998), the second, took place; half of them (47%) are still malnourished according to the latest NFHS (2005-6), the third.