-PTI Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has said 'Aadhaar' numbers, the unique 12-digit identification numbers given to residents of India, would be used to provide different social pensions, MGNREGA wages to workers and scholarships to students. "The Aadhaar-enabled applications would be utilised immediately in some selected 50 districts of the country, where the enrolment covered over 70%," the Rural Development Minister told reporters here last night. Over 20 crore people in the country were...

-The Hindu Technical glitches in the unique identification method make it unreliable in disbursing wages under the employment guarantee scheme   Within a few weeks of “Aadhaar-enabled” payments of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme wages being initiated in Jharkhand, earlier this year, glowing accounts of this experiment started appearing in the national media. Some of them also gave the impression, intentionally or otherwise, that this successful experiment covered most of Jharkhand....

-The Economic Times Imagine a rural family of five. Mom. Dad. Two kids. And Grandma. Assume too that they are below the poverty line. The day is coming when this family will have to give its biometrics out to myriad agencies.  You know that Nandan Nilekani's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or the Registrar General's National Population Register (NPR) has been collecting biometrics for a while now.  But a set of other...

-PTI Not satisfied with the pace of enrolment for Adhaar number, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today asked Chairman of Unique Identification Authority Nandan Nilekani to expedite the process in the city. In a meeting with Nilekani, Dikshit expressed her unhappiness in slow progress in enrolment for Adhaar numbers and asked him to take steps in removing the hurdles. "I explained about the slow progress in the enrolment for the Adhaar numbers. We...

-The Hindu The traditional ration cards will soon be replaced by smarts cards in Gurgaon as part of a pilot project by the Union Government in Haryana and Chandigarh to streamline the Public Distribution System. Announcing this at Gymkhana Club here, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary (Food & Supplies Department) Shakuntala Jakhu said that the task of preparing smart cards will be first taken up in the Pataudi block of Gurgaon. Besides...