-The Hindu Shanti Devi, a 70-year-old widow, spends her days cleaning houses in Okhla to earn a meagre sum as she has not got her government pension for over two years. “I went to the social welfare office. I showed them my passbook, my Aadhaar card, but they just gave me a slip saying my pension has been stopped and told me to approach the local MLA,” she says, pulling a...

-The Hindu The Budget needs to provide direction to India’s tottering economy and a boost to aggregate demand and investment The forthcoming Union Budget will determine whether India’s economic engine gets the steam needed for a rebound, or the current economic situation becomes even worse. Not just the future of the economy, the future of the country’s youth depends on the Budget. The unemployment rate at 6.1% (Financial Year 2017-2018) is the highest...

-The Telegraph The plight of an ‘indigenous foreigner' comes as a horrifying reminder of what lies in store As the country heaved over protests surrounding universities and an amended citizenship law this month, a tragic contour unfolded in Assam with the death of a daily wager belonging to an indigenous community. Naresh Koch, who was apprehended and taken to the Goalpara detention centre in March 2018, was declared a “foreigner” in June...

-The Indian Express Madhya Pradesh government has now found a solution. Under the Aadhaar-enabled PDS, the respective grain quota is given to the nominee after verification of his biometric details. It’s not uncommon for beneficiaries of the public distribution system (PDS) to miss out on their quota of monthly food grains for reasons ranging from disability to old age to failure of the biometric verification system. But the Madhya Pradesh government has now...

-The Telegraph MGNREGA funds run thin, government sits on demand Millions of rural job scheme workers may have their wages delayed in the new year with the programme coffers depleting and the finance ministry sitting on the demand for additional funds. According to data on the scheme website, the funds available as of December 30, 2019, were Rs 2,766 crore, which social activists working on the scheme’s implementation said would be exhausted in...