-PTI Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has joined government and PSU oil firms against the Supreme Court order making Aadhaar card not mandatory for availing social benefits saying, its directive has "very serious implications" in the implementation of welfare schemes. The UIDAI also contended that its order dated September 23, putting the onus on it to check that Aadhaar card should not be given to illegal immigrants, impinges on the jurisdiction...

-The Hindustan Times The level of food insecurity in India remains stubbornly high for a country that has experienced more than a decade of strong growth, attained robust levels of agricultural production and is a net exporter of food. So the widening gap between the country's economic confidence and the hunger that besets so many of its citizenry is a matter of concern. In the book Feeding India: Livelihoods, entitlements and capabilities,...

-The Hindu The role of education in reducing poverty is widely recognised but our planners are yet to realise how the impoverished struggle with a learning process that is unresponsive to their needs In a society where poverty is far more common than prosperity, one would expect the implications of poverty for education to be widely recognised. What we find, instead, is that poverty is seldom mentioned directly in policy documents on...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Much work remains to be done if the new Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act has to mark a meaningful shift for India's adivasi communities. Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) is a multimedia journalist and researcher, and currently with the Publics and Policies program at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. Among the worst excesses committed in India's six decade-old democracy, the forcible displacment...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Jupiter's gravity could be Rahul Gandhi's flourish, but "escape velocity" is a buzzword in macro economics and empowerment this year, figuring in the title of an influential paper by two Harvard economists studying racial inequality. In "Achieving escape velocity: Neighbourhood and school interventions to reduce persistent inequality", Harvard's Roland D Fryer and Lawrence F Katz examine policies that enable youth to "escape the gravitational pull of...