-NDTV NREGA, today celebrating its 10th anniversary, has received a hostile reception from the current political dispensation. The Rajasthan Chief Minister questioning the need for a law, the then Rural Development minister's suggestion to limit NREGA to a few districts, and the Prime Minister's speech in Parliament in 2015 reveal the BJP's hostility and double standards (NREGA was passed unanimously in 2005). Yet, it would be wrong to lay the entire blame...
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Can Aadhaar be saved? -Srijoni Sen
-Livemint.com What’s essential for the unique identification number to continue is a strong law. But what should it look like? A key thrust of the 2012 writ petition filed in the Aadhaar case (Puttaswamy versus Union of India) was that the executive action in implementing Aadhaar was unconstitutional in the absence of a law. Later developments in the case, including the government’s argument that there is no fundamental right to privacy, and...
More »Will the JAM Trinity Dismantle the PDS? -Silvia Masiero
-Economic and Political Weekly The platform known as the JAM Trinity (an acronym for Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobile numbers) may enable a shift from the current Public Distribution System, based on price subsidies, to the direct transfer of benefits. However, it is incorrect to argue that JAM technologies will necessarily lead to the demise of the PDS. State-level experiences of computerisation, recounted here, reveal that the same technologies can...
More »Karnataka’s public distribution system to go digital within three months -Nidheesh MK
-Livemint.com The state is mapping and feeding Aadhaar and Biometric information of ration card holders into a server Bengaluru: Karnataka food and civil supplies minister Dinesh Gundu Rao on Wednesday said the state’s fair price shops will go digital within the next three months. The state is mapping and feeding Aadhaar and Biometric information of ration card holders into a server. All transactions in the public distribution system (PDS) will have to...
More »Right to privacy concerns: Aadhaar holder can block his biometric info, Govt tells Supreme Court -Utkarsh Anand
-The Indian Express It is for the first time that the government or the UIDAI has disclosed that a mechanism exists under which a card holder can choose to block the Biometric information linked to his Aadhaar card. An Aadhaar card holder can block his card along with his demographic and Biometric information if he wants to opt out of the UID system. This lesser-known fact came into public domain on...
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