-The Economic Times Confusion over whether the unique identity number is a number, a card or both, and concerns over the UID and the National Population Register duplicating data prompted the Cabinet to refer UPA-2 's ambitious project to a group of ministers. The discussion on Thursday revealed that the Cabinet was not immune to contradictory and blurred perceptions about aadhaar, as UID is known, with some ministers saying they had received...

-Economic and Political Weekly A cost-benefi t analysis by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy of the benefits from aadhaar integration with seven schemes throws up huge benefi ts that are based almost entirely on unrealistic assumptions. Further, the report does not take into account alternative technologies that could achieve the same or similar savings, possibly at lower cost. Reetika Khera (reetika.khera@gmail.com) is at the Institute of Economic Growth on...

-The Hoot The media welcomed the UID's promise of giving an identity to those outside the system, but has failed to track its failure to do so. On January 1, the Indian government announced roll out of its ambitious cash transfer scheme  in 20 districts of the country based on unique identification (UID), also called aadhaar. The media, while presenting the pros and cons of cash transfer, also mentioned that...

-Outlook Trade Unions have raised red flag against the retirement fund body EPFO's suo moto decision to make submission of aadhaar mandatory for its over 50 million existing subscribers and new members. Questioning the decision of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the trade union leaders said that it would be impossible for the members to provide aadhaar numbers as the scheme was not operational in many parts of the country. Also...

A report by a parliamentary standing committee entrusted to examine the National Food Security Bill, 2011 has revived the debate on what measures India must take to end its abysmal track record of hunger and malnutrition, (See several links given below) despite successive years of high growth and record grain procurement. The draft legislation is likely to be debated in the upcoming session of Parliament, even as the recent Jaipur...