-Pratirodh.com The fanfare with which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi launched a service delivery scheme in Rajasthan based on the Aadhaar (foundation) unique identity (UID), and celebrated the issue of the first Aadhaar number topping the 200-million mark, should make the Indian National Congress a very worried party indeed—assuming it has a good survival instinct and basic grasp of practical politics.    To put it starkly, the Congress and...

-The Economic Times A new book by Bibek Debroy on Gujarat looks at how this much-talked about state has performed in economic terms. The author argues history, luck and administrative clarity have been the determining factors. There has been a discernible pickup in Gujarat's growth performance since the 10th Plan (2002-07), the five-year Plans being natural periods for breaking up the timeline. It's tempting to argue that there is nothing exceptional in...

-The Economic Times Ram Kishen, 52, half-blind and half- starved, holds in his gnarled hands the reason for his hunger: a tattered card entitling him to subsidised rations that now serves as a symbol of India's biggest food heist. Kishen has had nothing from the village shop for 15 months. Yet 20 minutes' drive from Satnapur, past bone-dry fields and tiny hamlets where children with distended bellies play, a government storage facility...

-The Hindu Universal electrification will remain a dream unless the government fixes the flaws in its much vaunted scheme to provide power to rural India In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister made the statement that “when the UPA Government came to power in 2004, we had promised that we would provide electricity to all villages.” He then went on to say: “Our next target is to provide electricity to each...

-The Hindu Forest Bench says statutory clearance is a must   The Forest Bench of the Supreme Court on Friday made it clear that no iron ore mining operations in Karnataka shall be permitted to resume unless there was statutory clearance for mining and till reclamation and rehabilitation was implemented in full. The Bench, comprising Justice Aftab Alam, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar, took the decision after the Central Empowered Committee in...