-The Business Standard Implement it with watershed development schemes to alleviate poverty The United Progressive Alliance government appears to be upbeat regarding the prospects of its flagship scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which provides a universal, self-targeting guarantee of 100 days of employment to every household in all rural districts of India. “MGNREGA has tremendous potential to increase agricultural production, which we have not been able to...

-PTI CBI has approached the Delhi high court claiming protection from disclosure of information held by it on allegations of corruption under the Right to Information Act. The CBI's move to approach the Delhi high court came on a Central Information Commission decision allowing RTI plea of activist CJ Karira who had sought information related to status of sanction for prosecution against public servants facing allegations of corruption during 2007-11. Ironically, the information...

-Counter Currents The Aadhaar scheme of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is to provide India's billion-plus people with a unique identification number. Enrolling into the scheme was and still is not mandatory, though it was mentioned that it would be difficult for people to access public services in the absence of enrolment. The scheme requires individuals to provide their photograph, fingerprints and iris scan together with documentary personal information,...

-The Business Standard Rich coal reserves found in Dharamjaigarh in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district have thrown the lives of the 15,000 Bangladeshi settlers in turmoil Kalipada Das was 12 years old when his parents slipped into India from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) after Partition in the early fifties. As violence rocked parts of Bangladesh, Das and his parents sailed across Khulna River to reach a railway station from where they hoped to board...

-The Indian Express Until recently, we took a compartmentalised view of national security. Each threat to national security was neatly fitted into one compartment. The first, of course, was a war with Pakistan. That was fitted into a compartment and was meant to be deterred, or defended, through the might of our armed forces. A war with China was, and remains, unthinkable, and therefore that threat was fitted into another compartment...