-Deccan Herald One important feature of Aadhaar is its immense potential to violate privacy and civil liberty of the people. This is one of the main issues highlighted by the petitioners in the Supreme Court. Aadhaar envisages a centralised database of Indian residents. At present, the data on each individual is available only in separate "silos" and it is near impossible to link a person's information in one silo to that in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In order to shield six national parties from the RTI Act, the government decided to extend the immunity to no less than 1,444 registered political parties as it felt excluding only "recognized" entities would create an anomalous situation. The benefits to 1,444 parties are set out in a note submitted to the Cabinet under the signature of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as in-charge of the department...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An expert panel has ranked Gujarat 12th among states in development, its findings flying in the face of Narendra Modi's claims but winning endorsement from economists The Telegraph spoke to. The committee, headed by Raghuram Rajan who has since been appointed Reserve Bank governor, assessed states on the basis of 10 criteria, which included many human development indicators. Bengal came 16th. Economist and Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen, who...

-Press Information Bureau The India Rural Development Report 2012/13 was released here by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development, Government of India. The Report was prepared by IDFC Foundation in collaboration with network partners, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), the Institute for Rural Management Anand (IRMA), and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), with contributions from several other researchers, experts and civil society organisations. On...

-The Hindu Lax monitoring, poor public engagement and inadequate training to vaccinators have dealt a serious blow to the crucial pentavalent immunisation programme The Pentavalent vaccine, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's latest addition to the immunisation programme, has run into a storm. The Supreme Court has sent a notice to the Ministry asking why the vaccine should not be banned in the country. The vaccine is no stranger to controversy. A...