-The Hindu Dudu (Rajasthan): The Union government launched an Aadhaar-enabled service delivery system here on Saturday with a promise of eliminating fraud, black-marketing, pilferage in schemes and bribery through a reliable mechanism of direct cash transfer to beneficiaries in a transparent manner. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the ambitious programme, which seeks to integrate the government-run flagship schemes with the Aadhaar card system at a...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: A judicious mix of conventional and alternative sources of energy will take the region on a growth path, experts said at a panel discussion on Alternate Energy as a Solution to Power Crisis in the Northeast at the NICT which concluded here today. Participating in the discussion, A.K. Saikia, secretary of SECONE, an organisation working for the energy sector, said the region had great potential for alternative sources of...

-The Indian Express Conspiracy theories are a handy standby when one wants to avoid the effort of critical thinking. So Tavleen Singh would rather rely on “the foreign hand” — that old bogey out of Indira Gandhi’s box of tricks — than examine facts that reveal uncomfortable truths. Lamenting the closure of the Vedanta aluminium refinery at Lanjigarh, Orissa (‘Why India could remain forever’, IE, September 30), Singh asserts that, if...

-Economic and Political Weekly The recent Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and, more broadly, on nuclear safety regulation has highlighted many serious organisational and operational flaws. The report follows on a series of earlier CAG reports that documented cost and time overruns and poor performance at a number of nuclear facilities in the country. On the whole, the CAG reports offer a powerful indictment of...

-Al Jazeera New report from UN's telecommunications agency breaks down international internet usage statistics. About one-third of the world's population now has access to the internet, but more needs to be done in order to achieve internet penetration targets as set out in the Millennium Development Goals, the International Telecommunications Union has said in a new report. Currently, 20.5 per cent of households in developing countries have access to the internet, which the...