-The Hindu Jairam to write to Prime Minister seeking more coverage The demand for universal pension for elderly persons got a fillip with President Pratibha Patil on Thursday extending her support and Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh deciding to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to restructure the pension scheme to cover more beneficiaries. Ms. Patil made a personal contribution of Rs. 15,000 to the Pension Parishad which is staging a...

-The Hindu The Centre on Tuesday unveiled the expanded version of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, allowing over 30 new permissible works, as productivity-enhancing activity. The gram panchayats alone have been empowered to decide on the priority of work to be taken up. Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, who tabled in Parliament a copy of the new notification, and Planning Commission member Mihir Shah told reporters that...

With the elderly likely to constitute a quarter of India's population by 2050, there is need for a publicly-funded, universal scheme that will overcome destitution among the aged India's social security system is woefully inadequate, when compared even to those in third world economies with no higher per capita incomes. Some States in India have fairly comprehensive social security schemes — notably Kerala, also West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — but...

-Down to Earth Biometric-based unique identity or Aadhaar is leading to huge problems for people working for the rural employment guarantee scheme and for others receiving welfare benefits. Not only have enrolments been done shoddily but the experience of the pilot projects shows that it is almost impossible to authenticate the work-hardened fingerprints of the poor, find Latha Jishnu and Jyotika Sood. Besides, there is the overwhelming issue of deficient online...

Aruna Roy is in Delhi, not as a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC) but as a social activist. Roy, under the banner of Pension Parishad, is spearheading a national campaign at Jantar Mantar demanding a universal pension scheme for senior citizens in India. A move that could cost the government around Rs 2 lakh crore per annum, the proposal will cover more than eight crore senior citizens. The...