-Live Mint   Divisions between the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI, or Aadhaar) and the home ministry grew wider on Thursday after the Nandan Nilekani-led entity and the department of information technology (DIT) raised objections to the Resident Identity Card (RIC) scheme. Three high-ranking officials, who spoke independently and on condition of anonymity, said a meeting of the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) to clear Rs. 6,790 crore for the home ministry’s RIC...

Liquor baron Ponty Chadha’s mercurial rise is all ‘Maya’ A reclusive liquor baron may seem like an anomaly in these never-ending good times. But Gurdeep Singh Chadha—better known by the moniker Ponty Chadha—fits the bill. Often called “Mayawati’s financier”, the 57-year-old Ponty has been making large (if silent) waves for the political patronage he enjoys in Uttar Pradesh. Any bottle of liquor sold in India’s most populous state goes through his...

-The Times of India   The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday registered a case of murder against 20 policemen in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case in Gujarat, adding to the pile of legal troubles of Narendra Modi government. The fresh FIR was registered by the probe agency after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) gave its complaint to the CBI on December 15, saying that the encounter was staged. The cops named...

While Asian economies boomed before the global recession in 2008, the fruits of that progress did not translate into better wages or secure employment conditions for workers in the region. The International Labour Organisation (ILO)'s Asian Decent Work Decade launched in 2006 was aimed at five priority areas of competitiveness, productivity and jobs; labour market governance; youth employment, managing labour migration and local development for poverty reduction. Today workers' unions are...

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to take over the investigation into the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. Stating that the Gujarat police could not be “relied upon” to conduct an impartial probe, the High Court asked the CBI to consider the case as an “exceptional one having national ramifications.” A Division Bench, comprising Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari, also directed chairman of the High...