-The Business Standard Cash transfer is targeted at the poor, but Aadhaar has no role in identifying the poor The disbursement of subsidies through direct cash transfers is round the corner. It will begin in 51 districts in the new year, just over a month away, and in half the country in four months’ time. So it is important to ask: do we have the capability to take on this job,...

-The Hindu For any law to truly liberate those trapped in manual scavenging, their numbers must first be established by a comprehensive survey Everybody declares with a full heart, and in a low voice, that it is a national shame. From Manmohan Singh and Pratibha Patil to Mukesh Ambani and Aamir Khan, the last mentioned a new convert to the Dalit cause, there is no dearth of people queuing up to take...

-Agence France-Presse Nekpur: With both hands holding the basket of human excrement on her head, widowed grandmother Kela walks through a stream of sewage, up a mound of waste and then dumps the filth while cursing. "Nobody even pays us a decent wage!" she spits as she rakes mud and rubbish over her newly deposited pile, one of several she drops in the course of her working day cleaning toilets as a...

-The Times of India Maharashtra Police today arrested nine people from Palghar for vandalizing a clinic, after the niece of the clinic owner posted a comment on Facebook questioning the shutdown in the wake of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's death. Two girls — Shaheen Dhada and Renu — were arrested over their post opposing the Mumbai shutdown but were granted bail after they furnished personal bonds, police said. "So far, we have...

-The Times of India After much confusion and protests, new cooking gas norms for weeding out duplicate and bogus connections appear to be finally working. Over 30,000 Indane customers alone surrendered their second connections last week, a senior oil ministry official told TOI on Monday. The official estimated the total number of customers who have surrendered connections in the region of over 50,000, considering that Indane - marketed by IndianOil - covers...