Correction?

The Economist (23- 29 May 2015) carries a special report on India. It gives an accurate assessment of Modi's first year in power. The report repeatedly mentions that manufacturing sector makes only 16% contribution to the economy.

As per Economic Survey of 2014-15, the break up of gross value added is:

Agriculture 19%

Industry 31% and 

Services 50%.

So what causes the gap between industry and manufacturing contribution? Laypersons might treat the two as the same. But mining and quarrying, electricity, gas, water supply and construction are the other parts of industry and together they contribute the difference of 15%.

It is important to remember that Modi's Make in India refers to manufacturing and not industry. Increasing the share of manufacturing from 16% to 25% is proposed and it is a very difficult target.

labour market intermediaries

Human resource management and labour economics belong to the same area but they have developed in a mutually exclusive manner. A book I am reading recently: Work in the new economy, flexible labor markets in Silicon Valley by Chris Benner, (Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2002) makes the connection very clear. Its treatment of labor intermediaries in IT industry is comprehensive and very informative. It reveals a whole new world which subsumed in the topic of sources of recruitment in HR management.

A short walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby

Travelogues get so boring. Balancing geographical and general information with characters involved and action is tough.
A short walk however does it admirably. The style of the author is deprecating and typically English - tongue in cheek. Reader's interest grows continuously and the end - it leaves readers wanting more.
Somehow I am always drawn to Central Asia in travel readings. Culturally it is close and also inaccessible now. Newby writes about his trip to Nuristan in 1956 with Hugh Carless of Her Majesty's Foreign Service. Hugh had gone to the region earlier but Newby was completely new and to his horror learnt that Carless also did not know anything about mountaineering. Still they persevered and climbed up to a short distance to Mir Samir - the peak they wanted to scale.
Evelyn Waugh has written a preface and Carless has added an epilogue. Fiftieth anniversary edition in 2008 is what I chanced upon in British Library and have enjoyed myself very much going through this much thumbed copy sans some photos

According to Vasudha J: The downside of micro financeIt has got bad publi...

According to Vasudha J: The downside of micro finance
It has got bad publi...: The downside of micro finance It has got bad publicity all over the world now. Its stock came down sharply in India following suicides of ...