-The Hindu The very foundation of Aadhaar must be reconsidered in the light of the privacy judgment Predictably enough, the recent Supreme Court order affirming that privacy is a fundamental right sent Aadhaar’s public-relations machine into damage control mode. After denying the right to privacy for years, the government promptly changed gear and welcomed the judgment. Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), suddenly asserted, “The Aadhaar...

-The Times of India Punjab, the leader of green revolution during the '70s, has become disreputable for farmers' suicides in last two decade or so. Usually, these suicides are attributed to farmers' indebtedness to banks and commission agents. However, it is to be noted that bank credit has played a pivotal role in investment into tubewells, tractors, farm mechanization, horticulture, dairy, poultry and forestry all over India, and especially in Punjab and...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation: On digital transactions, too, RBI data shows that the volume of electronic payments, after peaking in December 2016 at 957.50 million transactions compared with 671.49 million in November, has been on a decline. New Delhi: When it launched the currency withdrawal in November, the NDA government had outlined four key objectives of the demonetisation exercise: detection of black money, elimination of fake currency, squeezing funds available for...

-The Indian Express A citizen-centric data eco-system is necessary to protect privacy. Who owns my data? In this question, if you replace data with a physical object, like a car or a house, the answer would obviously be “me”. That’s true not only of physical objects, but also of content because the latter is governed by copyright laws. The principle is you are the owner of the content you create, such as...

-The Indian Express The failure of populist rural credit schemes stems primarily from poor understanding of farm indebtedness in the first place. From the 1970s, a lot of private investment in tube-well irrigation, farm mechanisation and allied agricultural activities took place with bank credit support. After the establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 1982, institutional credit flows not only accelerated, but also exhibited diversification to fund livestock...