A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said we very much “hope” that in India and any country that is having elections, people’s “political and civil rights” are “protected” and everyone can vote in a “free and fair” atmosphere.

Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric made these remarks on Thursday while he was responding to a question on the “political unrest” in India ahead of the upcoming national elections in the wake of the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of the opposition Congress Party’s bank accounts.

“What we very much hope that in India, as in any country that is having elections, that everyone’s rights are protected, including political and civil rights, and everyone is able to vote in an atmosphere that is free and fair,” Dujarric said at the daily press briefing Thursday.

The response from the United Nations comes a day after the US also reacted to a similar question on Mr Kejriwal’s arrest and freezing of the Congress party’s bank accounts.

On Wednesday, hours after India summoned a senior US diplomat to protest remarks on Mr Kejriwal’s arrest, Washington reiterated that it encourages fair, transparent, timely legal processes.

On the US diplomat being summoned in Delhi, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said “I’m not going to talk about any private diplomatic conversations. But of course what we have said publicly is what I just said from here, that we encourage fair, transparent, timely legal processes. We don’t think anyone should object to that, and we’ll make the same thing clear privately.”

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) officials summoned Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Gloria Berbena to their office in South Block in the Indian capital. The meeting lasted for more than 30 minutes.

On Thursday, India said the US State Department’s recent remarks on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are “unwarranted” and asserted the country is “proud of its independent and robust democratic institutions” and committed to protect them from any form of undue external influences.

Any “external imputation” on India’s electoral and legal processes is “completely unacceptable”, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in New Delhi during his weekly press briefing.

In India, legal processes are driven “only by the rule of law”, Mr Jaiswal said on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in a statement that India took strong objection to the remarks of the Spokesperson of the US State Department about certain legal proceedings in India.

“India’s legal processes are based on an independent judiciary which is committed to objective and timely outcomes. Casting aspersions on that is unwarranted,” the MEA had said. The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the excise policy ‘scam’.

The case pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in formulating and executing the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 which was later scrapped.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In India, higher educated young people are more likely to be unemployed than those without any schooling, according to the International Labour Organization.

The jobless rate for graduates was 29.1%, almost nine times higher than the 3.4% for those who can’t read or write, a new ILO report on India’s labor market showed. The unemployment rate for young people with secondary or higher education was six times higher at 18.4%.

“Unemployment in India was predominantly a problem among youths, especially youths with a secondary level of education or higher, and it intensified over time,” the ILO said.

The figures suggest a sharp mismatch between the skills of the labor force and the jobs being created in the market. It also underscores warnings by well-known economists like former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan that India’s poor schooling will hinder its economic prospects over time. 

“Youth unemployment rates in India are now higher than the global levels,” the ILO said. “The Indian economy has not been able to create enough remunerative jobs in the non-farm sectors for new educated youth labor force entrants, which is reflected in the high and increasing unemployment rate.”

In China, the jobless rate for young people aged 16-24 climbed to 15.3% in the first two months of the year, about three times higher than the 5.3% rate for the urban population. 

While the share of young unemployed Indians – aged 15-29 – dropped to 82.9% in 2022 from 88.6% in 2000, the share of educated youths climbed to 65.7% from 54.2% in the period, the ILO figures show.

Women are particularly hard hit. They accounted for 76.7% of the educated unemployed youths compared with 62.2% for men, the figures show. Joblessness was also higher in urban areas than in rural parts.

India has one of the lowest female labor force participation rates in the world, at about 25%, the ILO said. The rate improved during the pandemic after a “significant increase” in subsistence employment, it said.

The report also cautioned about the rise in so-called gig jobs, or temporary and low-paying employment, like food delivery drivers. Digital platforms have blurred the distinction between employees and self-employed individuals, creating new challenges for the well-being and working conditions of workers, the ILO said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

RCB face KKR in Bengaluru on Friday, seeking a win on their home ground. Familiar bowling woes continue to haunt RCB. While the new-ball pair of Mohammed Siraj and Yash Dayal have delivered, West Indies pacer Alzarri Joseph has struggled. In the spin department, Mayank Dagar has failed to find a partner.