-The Times of India Jaipur: They were meant to ease processes and clean up corruption in distributing food grain to the poor. Instead, the e-Point of Sale (PoS) machines have thrown up more problems than solutions. Each of these devices costs roughly Rs 17,000. They are programmed to read fingerprints of those registered to receive subsidized grain, connect to the Aadhaar database over the Internet and authenticate the recipient. Clearly, things aren't playing...

-PTI New Delhi: The Government has eliminated 1.6 crore duplicate and bogus ration cards that will help save about Rs 10,000 crore in subsidy bill annually, said Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa. In addition, the Government has saved Rs 14,872 crore by offering subsidy on cooking gas (LPG) directly to consumers and direct benefit transfer is planned to be extended to 150 schemes by the end of this year, he told PTI here. DBT...

-The Indian Express NDA government’s plans for agriculture are still to bear fruit As the Modi government celebrates two years in office, any review of its functioning will be incomplete without examining its record on the farm front. In the two years (FY15 and FY16), while the economy grew at 7.2 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively, agriculture and the allied sector grew at -0.2 per cent and 1.1 per cent....

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre today urged the Supreme Court to dismiss Congress Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh's petition challenging the Aadhaar law, contending that an act passed by Parliament was immune from judicial challenge. "The fact is that the law has been passed as a money bill and the Speaker has confirmed it. It is immune from any judicial challenge," attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi told a bench headed by Chief Justice...

-The Indian Express Substantial number of interest subvention scheme loans are diverted to non-agricultural uses. Government must switch to an income-support subsidy regime The Union budget for 2016-17 has provisioned Rs 15,000 crore on account of interest subvention for short-term agricultural credit, up by Rs 2,000 crore over the revised estimate for FY16. The mere shifting of this line item from the department of financial services to the department of agriculture...