India Employment Report 2024

• The International Labor Organization and the Human Development created the India Employment Report 2024, which was just published.

Context:

• It has examined the patterns and developments in the Indian labor market over the past 20 years, including the COVID-19 years, and it has enumerated the “impact of growth on employment as well as the emerging characteristics of the employment challenges now confronting the economy.”

key findings

• The primary long-term characteristic of the employment situation in the nation remains the inadequate expansion of the non-farm sectors and their capacity to take in labor from the agricultural sector.
• The proportion of Indians between the ages of 15 and 59 who are working-age climbed from 61% in 2011 to 64% in 2021 and is expected to reach 65% in 2036.Every year, 7-8 million new young people enter the workforce.
• The authors caution that the nation’s unemployment rate has been rising over time and that it is “predominantly a problem among youth,” particularly those with at least a secondary education.
• The percentage of young people without jobs in the overall unemployed population was 82.9% in 2022, according to the report, which also stated that the proportion of educated youth without jobs rose from 54.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022.
• In addition, women made up a bigger percentage (76.7%) of the adolescents without jobs who had completed secondary education or above than did men (62.2%).
• The labor market has a notable gender disparity, as evidenced by the low rates of female participation. Over the previous 20 years, the gender disparity in the LFPR has essentially stayed the same.
• In 2022, the gender difference persisted in both rural and urban areas, with young men’s LFPR (61.2%) over three times greater than young women’s (21.7%).
• The positions continued to be low-paying and low-productive, according to the ILO and IHD. Real earnings and wages either decreased or remained unchanged.

Reports Recommendations:

• Put more jobs at stake in growth and manufacturing.
• Boost the caliber of employment.
• Boost the efficacy of labor market policy and skill training systems.
• Close the knowledge gaps on youth employment and labor market trends.
• combining macroeconomic policy with other employment-generating measures to increase productive non-farm employment.
• Micro, small, and medium-sized businesses need to be decentralized and assisted.
• In order to address the gender gap in employment, the ILO and IHD recommended that steps be taken, such as developing policies to increase women’s participation in the labor market and providing more institutional care facilities, flexible work schedules, better public transportation, better amenities, and increased workplace safety.

Ladakh’s residents on a hunger strike

• The well-known environmentalist and educator from Ladakh, Sonam Wangchuk, started a 21-day hunger strike in Leh on March 6.Thousands of Ladakh inhabitants have been calling for protections under the Indian Constitution’s Sixth Schedule, and this strike was in support of their demands.On March 26, Mr. Wangchuk called off his hunger strike; however, ladies in Leh are still participating in it. The elderly, monks, and young people have all declared that they will gradually join the hunger strike if their demands are not satisfied.

Context:

• The State of Jammu and Kashmir was divided into the UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in August 2019. People’s exclusive rights to jobs and land were abolished.Ladakh became a UT without a legislature in 2019 under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act.

Why a hunger strike

• Ladakh residents claim that a Lieutenant Governor, who does not reside in Ladakh, is in charge of running the UT.There were also a number of bureaucrats who were not Ladakh natives but held important positions and might influence future decisions for the area.
• Furthermore, after Ladakh was designated as a UT by the national government, the already-existing Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (LAHDCs) in Leh and Kargil lost their authority.
• One example is the proposed Ladakh Industrial Land Allotment Policy 2023. Although the draft policy, intended to draw investments to Ladakh, gives the LAHDCs the authority to make decisions about land use and management, it fully strips them of any authority to make decisions about land allocation and leasing.
• The Sixth Schedule, according to protesters, could aid in resolving these problems because it permits the creation of district and regional councils, which have the power to enact laws governing the use of land for residential, agricultural, grazing, and other purposes that serve the interests of the local populace.
• With over 2.74 lakh people living there as of the 2011 Census, and over 97% of them being tribal, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes recommended in 2019 that Ladakh be added to the Sixth Schedule.

C-VIGIL APP

• Vigilant people have filed over 79,000 complaints on the C-Vigil app since the announcement of the 2024 General Elections.

Context:

• C-VIGIL, which stands for Vigilant Citizen, highlights the proactive and accountable role that citizens may play in ensuring that free and fair elections are conducted.

About C-VIGIL APP

• The Election Commission of India released a cutting-edge smartphone application called C-VIGIL.
• It enables voters to report election-related spending breaches as well as infractions of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
• The program offers live images and videos with auto location data, as well as time-stamped irrefutable proof of violations.
• Election machinery may fairly rely on this special combination of timestamping, live photo, and auto locating to find the proper site and respond quickly.
• The app’s goal is to expedite the process of receiving complaints and resolving them.
• Additionally, it has a GIS-based dashboard that offers a powerful decision-making tool for dismissing and discarding pointless and unconnected instances even before they are taken further, which lessens the election machinery’s labor related to ghost complaints.

SYRIA

• A deadly vehicle explosion that targeted a busy market in northern Syria claimed the lives of at least seven people.

Context:

• The town of Azaz was the scene of the attack. As a vital supply route and in close proximity to Turkey, Azaz is strategically significant in the context of the Syrian civil war. The Syrian Interim Government, an opposition organization claiming legitimacy as the nation’s government, is based in the town.

About Syria:

• Syria, formally the Syrian Arab Republic, is a West Asian nation situated in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean.
• The Mediterranean Sea forms its western boundary, followed by Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, Israel and Lebanon to the southwest, and Iraq to the east.
• Damascus is the largest and capital city.
• Many different ethnic and religious groups call Syria home, with the majority being Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Circassians, Armenians, Albanians, Greeks, and Chechens among them.
• Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Yazidis are among the religious groups.
• Since 2011, the nation has been engulfed in one of the worst civil wars worldwide due to the conflict.