-The Economic Times Ashok Gulati, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, warns that India will have a record food grain stock of 75 million tonnes by June when wheat procurement for the year would be over. A third of it would be stored in the open, and vulnerable to damage from rain, as covered storage capacity is only 50 million tonnes. If these stocks are not run down...

The crux of the problem is not leakages, but unsold stocks. The debate on the public distribution system is being increasingly overwhelmed by the issue of corruption. The pressures on the system are seen primarily, if not entirely, as one of leakages. This preoccupation with leakages has reached a point where the government appears set to throw up its hands and just hand over cash to families, irrespective of whether they...

-Down to Earth Biometric-based unique identity or Aadhaar is leading to huge problems for people working for the rural employment guarantee scheme and for others receiving welfare benefits. Not only have enrolments been done shoddily but the experience of the pilot projects shows that it is almost impossible to authenticate the work-hardened fingerprints of the poor, find Latha Jishnu and Jyotika Sood. Besides, there is the overwhelming issue of deficient online...

-The Times of India The national project to give unique identity numbers to all Indians, and enable welfare payments electronically, is now facing a snub from the very part of the government that funds it, and has been its most staunch supporter so far: The finance ministry. Two moves initiated by the banking division in the finance ministry over the past three months appear to duplicate and bypass the work being done...

The National Advisory Council has asked the Centre to formulate a national policy to stem the declining sex ratio at birth that it believed was “located at the complex interface of the status of women in Indian society, patriarchal social mores and prejudice, spread and misuse of medical technology and the changing aspirations of urban and rural society”. The council’s draft recommendations — prepared by members Farah Naqvi and A.K. Shiva...