-The Hindu BJP Chief Minister Raman Singh is the face of the reformed public distribution system in Chhattisgarh and indeed, he is still banking on it for a third consecutive term despite the anti-incumbency factor against several MLAs and a few ministers in his council. In his recent vikas yatra, he showcased development and focussed on the path-breaking Public Distribution System (PDS) reforms that were dovetailed into the Chhattisgarh Food Security Act...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government, in a bind over a recent Supreme Court order asking it to desist from linking social welfare schemes with its ambitious unique identity card Aadhaar, on Monday held out an assurance to the top court that no one would be deprived of any social welfare benefits for not holding Aadhaar. The government said while it had initiated the scheme to provide benefit transfers using Aadhaar...

-The Hindu "Only subsidy and not service has been made conditional on providing the Aadhaar number" The Supreme Court order on Aadhaar is expected to provide relief to more than 24 lakh people in 20 districts who would have got locked out of access to subsidised LPG gas cylinders, for not having valid UID cards that are linked to banks. The court in its interim order had said that no one should be...

-Outlook The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically-but we're still staring at a sanitation disaster "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover." -V.S. Naipaul An Area of Darkness, 1964 Not...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: For the beleaguered UPA government, here are some words of praise. The flagship rural employment guarantee scheme has comes in for praise from the World Bank, five years after it described the programme as "policy barrier" to economic development and poverty alleviation. The World Development Report 2014 has described the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act as a "stellar example of rural development". At the heart...