Skill development in India : Need of the hour

  Strong and efficient work force is the back bone of any strong economy.  And for the developing countries like India, which aims to dominate the world, strong work force means more that that. 

  With 356 million of the India's population in the age group of 10-24,  it has the highest population of youth than any other country in the world, surpassing China. While this demographic strength can sound like a boon for India which is currently one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it is not exactly true. India certainly has the strength in terms of youth numbers, it is still merely a resource. It needs to harness this strength by training them and empowering them into skilled labor who can later contribute to its economy in a significant way. Without any training the youth will be taking up menial jobs for meager salary to finish a work inefficiently. This wouldn't help neither the youth nor their country to prosper economically.

   Knowing the importance of skill development of the youth, you expect India to already have very good skill development policies in place. But the truth is quiet the contrary. India adds 12 million people to its work force. Less than 4% of them gets some kind of formal training. This puts India in one of the worst countries in the world in terms of skilled labor. This is alarming giving the huge working population here. India spends thousands of crore rupees in skill development every year and the results are way below average. The reason for the poor performance is more the inefficient use of funds than the lack of funds. Going further we will look at the policies India implement in the Skill development and the reasons for its failure.

Flaws in the Government Policies:

   There are a number of government bodies working on skill development. Ministry of Labor and Employment (MoLE),  Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Nation Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), etc. All of them aiming to improve the skills of the labor. There is clearly a lot of redundancies involved. The government aims to skill 500 million people by 2022 without giving a clear definition of what skill is. There is not proper evaluation of the usage of funds. There is no benchmark to evaluate the results of the programs launched.

Changes Proposed:

    1. All the government bodies working for skill development must report to the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Proper evaluation methods need to be implemented to make sure the funds are not misappropriated.

    2. Labor Market Information Systems should provide real time data on the labor employment trends and new opportunities. 

    3. Redesign Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) program. The industries, stake holders and the government needs to come together in defining the course curriculum so that the people graduating from the program should be employed easily.

    4.  While ITIs are designed for the people who have below par education, there must be "Technical and Vocational Training Institutes" for people who passed 10th standard and above. India can take examples of Finland, China which are successful in implementing TVTI's for empowering their youth. Currently there are a lot of Engineers graduating from poor Engineering colleges who remain unemployed since their education is not what the Industry requires. TVTIs provide a platform for the educated class (10th pass or above) to develop skill set required for the Industry instead of taking up less promising degree from a below par Engineering college.

     5.  Government should also take up help from NGOs like Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, who have been working to tackle the skill development program for nearly 50 years. 

Needless to say skill development in India is really complicated given its diversity. So, Govt. cannot solve this problem alone and needs all possible help. So, it should encourage all the Industrialists, Educational Institutes, Universities, NGO's, overseas Govt., to help tackle this problem. Without this India can't possible imagine to achieve its dram become a developed and prosperous nation.

Sources: The Hindu; The Guardian.

  

  

Income tax returns filing #form16

Things to know:

Form 16

If you are salaried employee in an organization, then you will get the salary after deducting tax by the employer. This process is called as Tax Deduction at Source(TDS). Every company has to get the TIN. TINis Tax Identification Number. This number is issued to person who is responsible to deduct Tax on payments made to employees.
At the end of financial year, company must issue a form 16 which contains the details about the salary earned by that employee and how much tax deducted. It will have details on each month. In simple termsForm 16 is details about the tax deducted by the employer in behalf of employee. The same will be paid to governemt by the company. Many people thing that getting the Form 16 alone is enough for the tax filing. Tax payer has to use the Form 16 to file the IT return every financial year end.
For example, if you have worked in two different companies in the same financial year, he must obtain the two Form 16 to file the IT returns.

Form 16A

The purpose of the Form 16 and 16A is the same except the issuing person. Form 16is applicable only to the salaried employee. There is many other areas where TDS can be applicable like deducing the tax for interest earned by your Fixed Deposit in the Bank. Here bank is the person who deducts the tax. For every financial year they must issue a TDS certificate to the customer. They have to fill the Form 16A and hand over to the customer.


Tax return

There is a provision of refund of excess tax along with interest. For claiming a refund one has to file the income tax return within a specified period.

It is a Standard form provided by the tax authorities on which a taxpayer reports taxable income with permitted deductions and exemptions, and computes his or her tax liability.

More info on Income tax in India

Now that you understand what Form 16 is, you need to file the details furnished in the Form 16 on the  e-Filing Home Page, Income Tax Department, Government of India

A clear step by step procedure is given the the following pdf
Instuctions to file returns on incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in

FAQ
1. Where is the section/column to be filled to get HRA exemption under section 10(13a) in ITR1 form?

Ans. There is no separate HRA section in ITR1 form, so the when you specify your income, deduct the HRA amount and file it.

PS. Part of it is taken from Quora

Inspiration

Affect of inspirational quotes on me is really magical. It keeps me focused on my goal and reminds me that I can achieve it. It is one the reason for me to start this blog. Hope the following quotes inspire you too. Cheers!

What are left and right political parties or beliefs or policies?

I am sure you must have come across these terms often on TV or newspapers. Well i did too, but I just had a vague idea about them and was never sure of their meaning. So I did some research on internet, went through some articles on the internet to understand it. Here is the gist of what I've learnt. Hope it will be helpful.

Facts

1. The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left.

2. When the French National Assembly was replaced in 1791 by a Legislative Assembly comprising entirely new members, the divisions continued. "Innovators" sat on the left, "moderates" gathered in the centre, while the "conscientious defenders of the constitution" found themselves sitting on the right, where the defenders of the Ancien Régime had previously gathered.

3. Until Twentieth Century, the terms "left" and "right" were not used to refer to political ideology but only to seating in the legislature.

Views

So, there is no specific definition to what the left and the right political ideologies as the usage is adopted differently in different countries.

Generally, a political party or ideology can be:

Left	Right
1. Believes in equality. 2. Support for social policies for working class and multiculturalism 3. Business is regulated and higher taxes for the rich. 4. Policies for the under privileged like National Health Plans 5. Shows empathy for the poor	1. Believes in equity.  2. Support for policies of economic and corporate development. No special support for working class. 3. Believes that business shouldn't be regulated  4. Believe that people should look after themselves. 5. Survival of the fittest

Following are the list of political parties (country-wise) categorized as left/right

USA

Left   : Democratic party is generally identified as the left

Right : Republican party is generally identified as the right

UK

Left wing parties: Labour Party and the Green Party

Right wing parties: Conservative Party

India

It is a bit complicated in india.

UPA : Center-Left coalition by INC

NDA : Center-Right coalition by BJP

Center-left and Center-Right means its a certain degree of left/right. Neither of them is an extreme form.

Following infograph gives a clear idea on left and right governments in USA. You can reach it here

PS: This article is to get a quick understanding of the concept. You can actually reach the source links listed below to learn more.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics

http://idontgetpolitics.co.uk/right-left-wing