-The Hindu Hyderabad: Completion of Aadhaar enrolment, opening of Bank accounts for all beneficiaries of welfare schemes and seeding of unique identity numbers with the Bank accounts in the State is likely to take over six months, notwithstanding the government plans to wind up the work over the next two months. Official sources told The Hindu that it would take nothing less than four months to complete the exercise in all respects...

-The Business Standard Indian plantations bloom in Ethiopia at the cost of the livelihoods and homes of the tribals If there is “blood diamond”, there is also such a thing as “blood maize”, “blood soya” and “blood pulses”. These come all the way from plantations in Ethiopia and other countries with repressive regimes. India, which claims to shun blood diamonds coming from African mines that use slave labour, is enthusiastically backing exploitation of...

-The Times of India When the PMO was finalizing the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme in October using Aadhaar as the basic platform, at least three other agencies suggested they could implement the new plan equally well. The home ministry's NPR plan prompted the government to divide the work of issuing ID cards in two segments, shrugging off the department of financial services' suggestion that Banks and debit cards could be used...

-Counter Currents The Aadhaar scheme of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is to provide India's billion-plus people with a unique identification number. Enrolling into the scheme was and still is not mandatory, though it was mentioned that it would be difficult for people to access public services in the absence of enrolment. The scheme requires individuals to provide their photograph, fingerprints and iris scan together with documentary personal information,...

-The Business Standard Nobel laureate says rural areas worst affected, with wages in Chinese villages having risen 6-7 times faster Nobel laureate Amartya Sen today said that wages in India had failed to keep pace with the overall GNP growth over the last decades. Sen pointed out, although India has seen a lot of economic growth over the past 20 years, wages, especially that of rural labour, have fallen behind. Comparing wage rise...