Employment plan rolled out for job-starved Kashmiri youth

New Delhi/Srinagar, March 3 (IANS) An expert group headed by former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor C. Rangarajan Thursday rolled out an employment plan for the youth in job-starved Jammu and Kashmir, envisaging vocational training for up to 100,000 of them in the next five years. The Rangarajan committee report, which was released simultaneously in Srinagar and New Delhi, assumes significance because the state, according to official findings, has some 500,000 jobless youth who are often targeted for recruitment by militant outfits to be their overground workers.  The six-member Rangarajan committee was set up in August 2010 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and was to submit its report within three months. Manmohan Singh had last week in parliament said the government would do everything to provide avenues for gainful employment to the youth in state. 'If we can create jobs for a lakh of students from the (Kashmir) Valley and other parts of Kashmir, I dare say it will change the mental make-up or the mindset of the Kashmiri people,' he said in his address to parliament.

Deficit goal viable with oil pass-through – Dr, Subir Gokarn

The deficit cutting target, criticised by many economists as unrealistic, is viable if New Delhi is willing to pass along higher crude oil prices to consumers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor said on Wednesday.  On Monday, the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee unveiled a budget for the year starting April 1 that targets a decrease in the fiscal deficit to 4.6 percent of GDP, from an expected 5.1 percent in the current year, a goal many economists have said underestimates the government's energy subsidy burden in the face of high global crude prices.  "I think the judgement about subsidies indicated that, if you are committed to lower subsidies, the implication is that if crude prices go up you are willing to pass it on," RBI's Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn told reporters.  "Given those assumptions, the budget numbers (on the fiscal deficit) are realistic, because they have pegged the subsidies at whatever limit they have," Gokarn said on the sidelines of an Institute of International Finance meeting.

India to face challenge of inclusive growth

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D. Subbarao said India would face the challenges of inclusive growth in the coming days as the country would move on a higher growth trajectory.  Inaugurating an exhibition named Newsibition here on Wednesday, Subbarao said: ""In the second decade of the new millennium we are going to face challenges of inclusive growth and of meeting the challenges of transcending to higher growth rate."  Newsibition traces the journey of the Reserve Bank down 75 years through photographs, documents and visuals. The exhibition has been divided into nine sections representing different phases of Reserve Bank's evolution.  "Last year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) completed its 75th year. Since the time RBI was established 75 years back, how it grew and the area in which RBI worked, the governors of RBI, the security features of the currency notes, this is all we want to show through this exhibition," said Alpana Killewala, Spokesperson of RBI.  The exhibition is part of the Bank's outreach and financial literacy efforts, which commenced with the setting up of the Reserve Bank's Monetary Museum in Mumbai.