-Governance Now An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Ram Sewak Sharma is a 1978 batch Indian administrative service officer belonging to Jharkhand cadre. Sharma is praised for laying down IT infrastructure in Jharkhand. In his role as the director general of unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) Sharma is chauffeuring ‘Aadhaar-enabled service delivery’ which would result in saving huge financial resources to the public exchequer. In an interview with Pratap Vikram Singh,...

-Live Mint FDI or not, there are problems that plague Indian agriculture and will need to be fixed first  With the parliamentary vote on foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail out of the way, the government will proceed with the liberalization of this sector as it thinks it will improve the prospects of agriculture.   Should we be worried about our small neighbourhood stores shutting down? The fears are overblown. Organized large-format retail...

-IPS News Doha: United Nations climate talks are on the edge of collapse Thursday, according to a coalition of civil society and representatives from half of the world’s countries. Once again, rich industrialised nations are putting nothing on the table in terms of increased emissions cuts and financial support for poor nations, said Celine Charveriat, director of advocacy and campaigns for Oxfam International. “This is just like WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations where...

-AFP DOHA: UN talks seeking to halt the march of global warming entered their final day in Doha on Friday with key points outstanding: extending the greenhouse gas-curbing Kyoto Protocol and funding for poor countries. Delegates are preparing for a long day and night of final haggling to find consensus on interim ways to rein in climate change and smooth the way to a new deal that must enter into force in...

-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...