-HuffingtonPost.in This is a way to force Aadhaar enrolment, not fix the scheme. Children will suffer. I am not usually an opponent of Aadhaar, India's controversial scheme to give a unique identification number to all residents of India, with their biometric information seeded into it. Any fears that I may have about privacy or surveillance or misuse are overridden by my experience that what the poor want is to be counted, not...
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What's in a unique number? -Swati Narayan
-The Indian Express Linking of Aadhaar to a growing number of government entitlements is misguided LAST week the Union food ministry issued an unprecedented diktat. It has insisted that each family member must possess an Aadhaar number within four months, to be eligible for subsidised foodgrains under the National Food Security Act. This ties in with the larger plan for all ration shops by 2019 to verify Aadhaar biometrics at every...
More »Before Universal Basic Income, We Must First Get Social Spending Basics Right -Anjana Thampi and Ishan Anand
-TheWire.in The Economic Survey 2016-17 devotes a chapter to the provision of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), describing it as a “raging new idea,” a “radical new vision” and “the shortest path to eliminating poverty”. While warning that the UBI “should not become the Trojan horse that usurps the fiscal space for a well-functioning state,” the survey says a de facto UBI can be instituted in the existing “fiscal space”. It...
More »Rural employment scheme gets highest-ever funding
-The Hindu FM allocates Rs.48,000 crore for MGNREGA; says it will be brought under digital scrutiny The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), once described by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “living monument of the UPA’s failure,” got its highest ever allocation — Rs.48,000 crore — since its inception over a decade ago. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, however, indicated that the funds dispensed would come under increased digital scrutiny. “The...
More »Drawing up a diet plan -Sonalde Desai
-The Hindu The welfare challenge lies in providing assistance to needy households to ensure adequate diets without creating conditions in which they opt for inferior diets that are too heavy on cereals With the Kerala government’s decision to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from April, the whole country will be covered by the legislation. However, if we expect the NFSA to improve India’s malnutrition statistics, we may well be disappointed....
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