-The Indian Express The process of return of the bill saw an animated debate over why it was brought as a money bill. Since it was a money Bill, it could not be rejected or amended by Rajya Sabha Hours after the Opposition, making most of the NDA’s lack of numbers in Rajya Sabha, pushed through five amendments and returned the Aadhaar Bill to Lok Sabha, the Lower House rejected the changes...

-The Indian Express There is reason to wonder if this law is intended to be taken seriously, except in getting everyone on the data base, making it a scheme to number the population, and giving extraordinary powers to the UIDAI. The disrespect for the law has been an abiding aspect of the UID project, never mind the government (facts have mattered as little, but that is for another time). In the beginning...

-The Hindu The Aadhaar Bill opens the door to mass surveillance. This danger needs to be seen in the light of recent attacks on the right to dissent. No other country, and certainly no democratic country, has ever held its own citizens hostage to such a powerful infrastructure of surveillance. The Aadhaar project was sold to the public based on the claim that enrolment was “voluntary”. This basically meant that there was...

-Press Release from Delhi Pension Parishad Activists from seven major campaigns stated unequivocally that the Union Budget for 2016-17 far from ‘Transforming India’, as claimed by the Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley, is neglecting the interests of farmers, the poor and vulnerable both in nominal and real terms and subjecting every life-affirming program to severe  budget cuts. Activists from seven major campaigns such as the Right to Food Campaign , the...

-The Indian Express Budget 2016 has a greater focus on the rural and social sectors. But the challenge will lie in improving delivery systems. Indian agriculture as well as the rural sector have been in distress in the last two years due to deficit rainfall and the decline in global commodity prices. The rural non-agriculture sector, too, has been under stress due to the lack of demand for manufacturing and services. It...