India and its Youth : The Viewspaper Youth personifies caliber, potential, diligence, novelty and innovation. Blatantly, we all concede the fact that the youth have a broad perception of things and if guided by well-versed hands, they have the caliber to trigger the whole dormant government mechanism and make it operational in the real sense. However, in the present political scenario, we find very meager portion of youth in the political parties and within the political realms. There is a long running monopoly of old members in our political system. And when it comes to youth, they say they do not have the required experience and are too amateur to initiate and take national decisions affecting every citizen of our country. What a baseless allegation! Recently, the present election exemplifies the dynamic changes that have come up in the thoughts of the people. The recent Mumbai terror assault is a major example of the people’s fury.
The World Bank’s open data: 7 apps to play with Sanjay Pradhan was thrilled when, at age six, a cart full of sweets was wheeled to his family’s doorstep in Bihar, India. The gift, however, was intended as a bribe for his father, who was responsible for building roads in India’s poorest state. “My father had developed a firm stance against corruption, even though he was harassed and threatened,” says Pradhan in this moving talk from TEDGlobal 2012. “His was a lonely struggle, because Bihar was also India’s most corrupt state, where public officials were enriching themselves rather than serving the poor.” Years later, Pradhan joined the World Bank, which aims to fight poverty by transferring aid from rich to poor countries. However, he was quickly disillusioned. Pradhan, now the vice president of the World Bank Institute, believes that the spirit of openness is changing international aid. Poverty DataFinder (for iOS or Android). Happy data excavating.
International - the global coalition against corruption With governments committing huge sums to tackle the world's most pressing problems, from the instability of financial markets to climate change and poverty, corruption remains an obstacle to achieving much needed progress. The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five, on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). These results indicate a serious corruption problem. To address these challenges, governments need to integrate anti-corruption measures in all spheres, from their responses to the financial crisis and climate change to commitments by the international community to eradicate poverty. Notable among decliners over the past year are some of the countries most affected by a financial crisis precipitated by transparency and integrity deficits. Read the ReportDownload French report About this table Click the column headings to sort the table by rank or country.
Better Transportation Options=Healthier Lives The NewPublicHealth National Prevention Strategy series is under way, including interviews with Cabinet Secretaries and their National Prevention Council designees, exploring the impact of transportation, education and more on health. “Better Transportation Options = Healthier Lives” tells a visual story on the role of transportation in the health of our communities. Some highlights: Public transit users walk an average of 19 minutes getting to and from public transportation.Countries with lower rates of obesity tend to have higher rates of commuters who walk or bike to work.The risk of obesity increases 6 percent with every additional mile spent in the car, and decreases 5 percent with every kilometer walked.Lengthy commutes cost $100 billion each year in excess fuel costs and lost productivity.More than 30,000 people died in car wrecks in 2010.Strong seatbelt and child safety laws resulted in a 25 percent decrease in car accident deaths since 2005.
Rankings & Results « Vision of Humanity Latest peace news,research and videos Contact us Vision of Humanity is an initiative of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). IEP have offices in New York and Sydney. For more specific inquiries related to the peace indexes and research, please contact IEP directly. Media: media@economicsandpeace.org Education: educators@economicsandpeace.org Data request: info@economicsandpeace.org Sydney office PO Box 42, St Leonards, NSW 1590, Sydney Australia Tel: +61 2 9901 8500 New York office 3 East 54th Street 14th Floor New York, New York 10022 USA Tel: +1 (646) 963-2160 Job opportunities and internships are listed on the Institute for Economics and Peace website. Contact us Vision of Humanity Explore the state of global peace on interactive maps Sydney office New York office Contact us
America's (Really) Big Ideas Deficit | Umair Haque. Eudaimonics. Redesigning Global Prosperity. NB--this is an archived version of the very first essay I wrote on the internets, in 2004 (i think :). i've republished it here in 2012 (dis)honor of SOPA.The New Economics of Music: File-Sharing and Double Moral Hazard Part 1: Why the Music Industry is (Really) Broken ‘The whole point of digital music is the risk-free grazing’ – Cory Doctorow Every major label 's setting up an iTunes these days. I reached this conclusion because, as I was scoping BoingBoing one day, I read Cory's statement, and it struck me as exactly right. Fundamentally, I'm going to argue that consumers download music, as much to derive extra value from getting something for free, as they do because they want insurance against buying something they didn't want in the first place. Here are the basic economics of the music industry: The major record labels assume market risk in exchange for value. We can also look at this through the lens of contract theory. Now, in most real-world markets, information is an issue.
Outsourcing in India | Health care Reform Please support our site by enabling javascript to view ads. MUMBAI, India – U.S. healthcare reform gave 32 million new Americans insurance, the new U.S. president a feather for his cap and a good seven years' boon to the workload of India's $61 billion outsourcing industry. India's Economic Times declared it the industry's "biggest bonanza yet" and "far bigger than the Y2K." Finance and banking, telecommunications and manufacturing are the sectors that provide the lion's share of work to India's outsourcers. India's BPO and information technology exporting industry grew about 6 percent the fiscal year ending this March, according to NASSCOM, but is expected to more than double its growth — up to 15 percent — this year. It's the classic outsourcing debate but with a newer, larger scale: Does the $940-billion bill, coming as unemployment persists at just under 10 percent, mean sending another round of jobs abroad? That's where Firstsource Solutions, a Mumbai-based IT firm, sees an opening.
Women in Paris finally allowed to wear trousers On January 31, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's minister of women's rights, made it officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing trousers in the French capital. The law was kept in place until now, despite repeated attempts to repeal it, in part because officials said the unenforced rule was not a priority, and part of French "legal archaeology." In July however, in a public request directed at Ms Vallaud-Belkacem, Alain Houpert, a senator and member of the conservative UMP party, said the "symbolic importance" of the law "could injure our modern sensibilities," and he asked the minister to repeal it. Ms Vallaud-Belkacem agreed, and in a published statement on Jan. 31st wrote: "This ordinance is incompatible with the principles of equality between women and men, which are listed in the Constitution, and in France's European commitments. "From that incompatibility follows the implicit abrogation of the ordinance."
Worldwide Retirement ages This map shows the statutory retirement age for men in the private sector. The statutory retirement age is the age at which men working in the private sector can retire and receive full benefits. This map shows the statutory retirement age for women in the private sector. The statutory retirement age is the age at which women working in the private sector can retire and receive full benefits. This map shows the difference between men and women in statutory retirement age. The statutory retirement age is the age at which a person working in the private sector can retire and receive full benefits. This map shows the minimum pensionable age for men. This map shows the minimum pensionable age for women. This map shows the difference between men and women in minimum pensionable age. This map shows is it mandatory or not to retire at the statutory retirement age.
The Fallacy of the "China Defense" - Andrew Winston by Andrew Winston | 1:00 PM March 4, 2013 For anyone who doesn’t want to reduce carbon emissions, China seems like a great scapegoat. The defenders of the status quo argue that U.S. companies will be at a disadvantage if we tax carbon or invest in clean energy because “China’s not doing anything.” U.S. Senator Marco Rubio recently offered up a perfect example of this idea: “There are other countries that are polluting in the atmosphere much greater than we are — China, India, all these countries that are still growing. But there are three little problems with this logic: 1) It’s not true. China recently demolished this fallacy when leaders announced they would implement a carbon tax. Is China still growing and emitting more carbon? 2) Science doesn’t care. The math and physics of climate change are getting clearer by the day. 3) We should want to go clean anyway. One of Sen. I could keep going with counterarguments — like shouldn’t we lead because we’re, well, leaders?
The India Model Although the world has just discovered it, India's economic success is far from new. After three postindependence decades of meager progress, the country's economy grew at 6 percent a year from 1980 to 2002 and at 7.5 percent a year from 2002 to 2006 -- making it one of the world's best-performing economies for a quarter century. In the past two decades, the size of the middle class has quadrupled (to almost 250 million people), and 1 percent of the country's poor have crossed the poverty line every year. At the same time, population growth has slowed from the historic rate of 2.2 percent a year to 1.7 percent today -- meaning that growth has brought large per capita income gains, from $1,178 to $3,051 (in terms of purchasing-power parity) since 1980. India is now the world's fourth-largest economy. The notable thing about India's rise is not that it is new, but that its path has been unique. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Have an account?
4 inspiring kids imagine the future of learning After more than 13 years of research convinced him that children have the ability to learn almost anything on their own, 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra aspires to shape the future of learning by building a School in the Cloud, helping kids “tap into their innate sense of wonder.” In the spirit of Mitra’s invitation to the world to “ask kids big questions, and find big answers,” we asked four brilliant young people to tell us: What do you think is the future of learning? Here, their answers. Adora Svitak, 15-year-old writer, teacher and activist “One of the most powerful shifts in the future of education will come from not only the tools at our disposal, but from an underutilized resource: the students whose voices have for too long been silent. Watch Adora’s talk to discover “What adults can learn from kids” » Kid President, 10-year-old inspiration machine “My older brother and I believe kids and grown ups can change the world. Watch Kid President’s inspiring “pep talk” for the world »