Activist Gopal Krishna makes a case that the Unique Identification Number project is a gross violation of fundamental human rights and points out that a similar project/law in Britain is going to be repealed. This is with reference to a privacy invasion project which is relevant to India and all the democratic countries of the world. The very first bill that is to be presented by the UK's new coalition...

Poverty estimates stumble on differing definitions of the household for statistical and policy purposes Officially, the Planning Commission accepted the Tendulkar committee’s report on revision of poverty estimates after the empowered group of ministers on food security asked the commission to issue a final estimate of poverty in the country. Despite the commission’s acceptance, the ministerial group asked it for another estimate of poor households. The simple reason is that the...

The government has a panoply of legislative measures that can counter Maoists more than strengthening security measures against the ‘criminals’. Principal among these is the provision in paragraph 3 of Part A of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution which vests in the Centre the right to ‘issue directions’ to states with regard to administration in the Maoist-affected tribal areas. Invoking this provision becomes imperative in light of the failure of...

Caste proponents say the census must include questions on caste to establish true caste ratios. Opponents say questions on caste are socially divisive. They also raise a behavioural objection: the very announcement of a caste census could encourage people to claim, fraudulently, that they belong to a caste entitled to reservations. This behavioural objection applies as forcefully to surveys for determining poverty. The National Sample Survey Organization conducts periodic surveys on...

The government will compile figures at the district and block levels to arrive at a more accurate identification of poor for better targeting of welfare schemes. So far, the poor in India have only been counted at the national and state levels. The Planning Commission has commissioned a study which will come up with these relevant numbers soon. The poverty cut-offs (a minimum monthly expenditure below which people are considered...