The new draft National Water Policy (NWP) circulated by the Ministry of Water Resources to water experts suggests that the government is poised to withdraw from its responsibilities of water Service Delivery, and that multinational corporations and financial institutions might have too big a say in water allocation and policy. At first glance, it appears as if the policy takes a holistic approach to water resources management, with a clear recognition...

-The Business Standard   Having enrolled 200 million Indian citizens for Aadhaar, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is now taking the initial steps to the services route. UIDAI chairperson Nandan Nilekani said that they have started two pilots that will allow the oil industry to bring in transparency in LPG transfer and the use of Aadhaar for getting mobile connectivity. UIDAI is running a pilot in Mysore using the Aadhaar platform for...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

Deadwood in the Indian bureaucracy will not be able to clog the government any longer. The Centre has notified a rule making it compulsory for IAS, IPS and officers from other all-India services to retire in "public interest" if they fail to clear a review after 15 years of service.  Officers adjudged as inefficient and non-performing will be shown the door and even those who make the cut will need to...

-The Hindu   The services will enable transfer, application procedures to be brought to one's door Last Christmas Eve, 35 people in a remote village of Jharkhand received a unique present. They became the first Indians to access their Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme bank accounts on their doorstep, having had their identities authenticated through their Aadhaar numbers. They are among the earliest beneficiaries of the next phase of the ambitious —...