It is quite likely that a few weeks from now someone will be knocking at your doors and asking for your fingerprints. If you agree, your fingerprints will enter a national database, along with personal characteristics (age, sex, occupation, and so on) that have already been collected from you, unless you were missed in the “Census household listing” earlier this year. The purpose of this exercise is to build the National...

Maharashtra weeded out 2.9 million bogus ration cards last year, launching an identity verification drive to make the system foolproof. Residents had to provide electoral roll numbers, electricity bills and rent receipts to receive a ration card. Migrants had to present an official document confirming their change in residence. That led to the exclusion of many poor, homeless and migrant families as they lacked the necessary papers. This is the kind...

In what may change the way banks and cellphone companies as well as official agencies collect and process information about individuals, the government is proposing legislation that will empower citizens with sweeping rights to legal recourse against any misuse of personal data. The first draft of the proposed legislation has been released for public debate by the department of personnel and training (DoPT). The main aim of the umbrella legislation will be...

Sample some data on the microfinance performance in India: According to the data provided by www.mixmarket.org, microfinance in India reached close to 270 lakh active borrowers in 2009, with the average loan size close to Rs 8,000. This translates into total borrowing to over Rs 20,000 crore. Though this number seems large, it represents only 0.3% of our GDP. Thus, large swathes of poor, both in our villages and urban...

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) is targeting to provide 60 crore Unique Identificationcards during the next four years. Delivering Pradyumna Bal Memorial lecture here on Sunday evening, UIAI chairperson Nandan Nilekani said the authority issued first sets of uid cards number 20,000 to 42,000 since September this year. The project, however, was facing challenge of inclusion of deprived and effective implementation, Mr. Nilekani said. Large numbers of Indians do not...