The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is the first ever law internationally, that guarantees wage employment at an unprecedented scale. NREGA aims at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled, manual work.

This eighth biennial issue of State of the World

India should retool its economy to run on renewable energy, creating millions of jobs and raising the standard of living. The global economic downturn provides an excellent opportunity to improve India's energy supplies, which are critical to supporting better infrastructure and driving growth. India predicts it will need an extra 75,000 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity by 2012.

This report by Greenpeace shows that 35% of the country's electricity demands can be met from renewable energy by 2030 and 50% of the projected energy requirements from smart and efficient production, distribution and use of energy.

Agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction in India. India resides in its villages and according to the 2001 census 72.2 per cent of the people are in rural areas. The agriculture sector contributes only about 18 per cent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Clean Edge, which has been tracking the growth of clean-tech markets for nearly a decade, reports that global revenues for solar photovoltaics, wind power, and biofuels expanded from $75.8 billion in 2007 to $115.9 billion in 2008. For the first time, one sector alone, wind, had revenues exceeding $50 billion.

India continues to struggle with growing financial crunch to complete its water sector infrastructure and its operation and maintenance cost. On the other hand, inadequate institutional reforms and effective implementation has affected its performance level.

This paper provides an outlook for the Indian economy in the light of the extraordinary global financial crisis, that started in the US, but which has now transformed into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The Indian economy was slowing down even before the onset of global crisis and so the

The 21st edition of the annual comprehensive economic report on the developing member economies of ADB. sets. Evaluates the recent economic performance of 45 economies in Asia, and provides projections for major macroeconomic indicators for 2009 and 2010.

Climate change is increasingly recognised as a key issue for the automotive sector. According to figures from the International Energy Agency, transport is responsible for around 18% of all carbon emissions, with autos (light-duty vehicles) accounting for approximately 10%.

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