-The Indian Express That’s what the Aadhaar Act is. It was rightly categorised as a money bill and is wrongly expected to double up as a privacy statute With the billionth Aadhaar number being issued, the Aadhaar project is well on its way to becoming the centrepiece for governance in India irrespective of which government is in power. To that extent, critical engagement with the Aadhaar act is an essential exercise...

Amidst the prevailing gloominess over agrarian crisis, a recently released report says that the growth rate of agricultural output in both India and China were the same during 2008-2013. The agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of both these countries on an average grew at 3.3 percent per annum during that period. The latest available data from the 2016 Global Food Policy Report, however, indicates that the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka...

-The Indian Express There is a mounting employment crisis in India. The current growth model, built on large private investments, cannot address the problem. Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan raised many hackles with his demand for affirmative action or job reservations for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates in the private sector. He suggested that “providing quota in private jobs will help cool down anger among SC and STs”, thereby stemming...

-The Hindu Business Line It can, with the right approach and changed mind-sets. Tackling pollution’s a bigger issue   The odd-even formula is to be tried out once again in April, after its initial trial implementation in January this year. Repeated pilot testing assumes importance as an attempt to initiate behavioural change, making it acceptable before its permanent enforcement over time. If this is so, two obvious questions arise: How effective is the current...

-The Hindu In the area of intellectual property, public health and access to medicines, the Narendra Modi government should consider its independence to be of the utmost importance. Strong government leadership as well as flexible intellectual property systems are needed in order to effectively combat drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) and HIV and also antimicrobial resistance and non-communicable diseases. This is true not only for India but also countries which rely on affordable generic...