-The Hindu Senior citizens seek exception from registering biometrics in banks Chennai: Many senior citizens visiting banks for providing life certificate for pension and linking their Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts have been put to a lot of hardship. They complained that there was no common rule for banks and each of them was following whatever pattern their head offices had decided. Pensioners Herbert Clay, 69, and his wife Annie Clay, 63, had...

-The Indian Express In Jharkhand, ABBA was first made compulsory for PDS users in Ranchi district in August 2016. By June 2017, it was mandatory in about 80 per cent of the ration shops across the state. This meant, of course, that Aadhaar itself was compulsory — no Aadhaar, no food. Recent events in Jharkhand shed some useful light on the damage done by compulsory biometric authentication in the Public Distribution...

-The New Indian Express NEW DELHI: Amid controversial reports of hunger deaths in Jharkhand due to PDS beneficiaries being turned away, economist Jean Dreze says that even official records show that a significant proportion of people are being deprived of food rations every month. In an interview with New Sunday Express, the prime mover behind the NREGA welfare scheme said “this does not mean that Aadhaar is solely responsible for the failures...

-The Telegraph Lucknow: For 18 months since April last year, Phulwasi Devi and 34 other Elderly residents of Pipariya village couldn't figure out why they hadn't been receiving their subsidised food grain or old-age pension. It took them an 18km bus ride last Monday to find out, from the district social welfare department office, that they had all been marked "dead" in official records.. The 35 victims, who include 20 women and 30...

-Scroll.in The recent starvation death in Simdega epitomises a much larger problem of Aadhaar-related exclusion from the public distribution system in Jharkhand. The recent death of 11-year old Santoshi Kumari in Simdega district of Jharkhand has rightly stirred the country’s conscience. The context of this tragedy, however, is poorly understood, not least because of the Jharkhand government’s obfuscation. According to the family’s video testimonies, Santoshi died after starving for eight days. Even...