-The Business Standard   Its guarantee of non-duplication can have far-reaching cost benefits but it has deep design flaws that can be compromised. PRAVEEN CHAKRAVARTY Former Volunteer, Financial Inclusion, UIDAI* “Aadhaar is an unadulterated identity programme that answers the question: Is the individual who he or she claims to be?”   The word “unique”, and not “identity”, is central to the unique identity programme or Aadhaar. It may be true that the vast majority of people possess some...

-The Economic Times   Vaccines are a true gift of science to humanity. In developing countries, prevention is better than cure. Vaccines have a great track record of safety and efficacy and they are amongst the most cost-effective products, which even the poor have access to due to effective systems of procurement and delivery. India's contribution in the vaccine arena is noteworthy. The primary reason behind the country's vaccine success story is...

On a wall on Station Road, among posters of Khoonkar Darinde and The Dirty Picture, Amitabh Bachchan looks out of a row of yellow-and-red posters and says, “Do boond har baar.” Here in Moradabad, the town in western Uttar Pradesh that till recently exported, besides its intricate brassware, strains of the deadly polio virus, the posters have been around for long. The writing on the wall was clear: this was...

Factory official killed after death of union leader in police action In a major outbreak of industrial violence following the death of a trade union leader, a top official of a ceramic company in Yanam, a small enclave of Puducherry in Andhra Pradesh, was killed by workers at his residence here on Friday. The workers went on the rampage after their leader M.S. Murali Mohan was killed in police action outside the...

-DD News   In a damning action, government has barred former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair and three eminent space scientists from any re-employment for their alleged role in the controversial allocation of scarce S-band space segment to private firm Devas. The action, probably the first of its kind against a former Secretary-level technocrat and other retired officials, follows a high-level inquiry into the controversial deal under which Antrix was to lease out...