India has launched its first high-tech census. Citizens will be photographed and will give 10 fingerprints each. The resultant database will be used to issue identity cards, and later smart cards, to all.  All Indians will welcome high-tech smart cards. Yet the technological lead has been taken not by the census commissioner but, astonishingly, by Bihar. This state has just completed a pilot project for smart cards in Patna district,...

Terming the census data as a "treasure house" of information, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said it will help the Government plan its development work. Singh, who was enumerated for the Census here, requested each citizen to participate in the national endeavour and ensure that every person is included in the exercise. "This enumeration will constitute a treasure house of information for planning our development work," he said. He...

The draft food security legislation readied for cabinet’s approval is much narrower in scope than what was initially envisaged and, hence, stops short of assuring an entitlement as had been previously pledged. The final draft Bill which has been approved by the empowered group of ministers (eGoM) and reviewed by Mint restricts coverage only to poor citizens, confines it to the supply of 25kg of wheat and rice, does not lock...

The Planning Commission has offered an objective assessment of the unsatisfactory situation as far as Indian agriculture is concerned in its mid-term appraisal of the 11th Five-Year Plan. The commission has done well to remind us that the farm sector is still subject to strangulating controls that dissuade private investment in key areas, including logistics and storage. The government’s agricultural pricing policies, which have rendered minimum support prices (MSPs) the...

India launches on Thursday the task of counting its teeming billion-plus population, with 2.5 million people set to fan out over the country to begin work for the 2011 census. The exercise has formidable challenges -- coverage of a vast geographical area, left-wing rebels and separatists, widespread illiteracy, and people with a bewildering diversity of cultures, languages and customs. "The census is a means of evaluating once in every 10...