-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government's spending on the rural job scheme increased 10 per cent in the last fiscal despite a matching decline in the number of beneficiaries because of deletion, challenging claims that weeding out bogus card-holders helped cut down on expenditure and pointing to the lack of jobs in rural areas. After verification, the government struck off the names of 1.62 crore job card-holders under the Mahatma Gandhi National...

-The Times of India PUNE: Navabai Ansari, a maid from Mangalwar Peth, is a harassed woman. It has been over two months now, but the fair price shopowner in her area won’t give her food grains as her husband’s Aadhaar and the ration card are not linked. Nirmala Rajput, a daily wager, from Guruwar Peth has also been denied her mandatory ration by a fair price shopowner in her area for over...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts and PAN cards was intended to screen genuine tax payers from dishonest elements evading taxes. The government made the comments while trying to allay fears that people could be harassed for money-laundering offences. Appearing for the Centre and the Aadhaar-issuing Unique Identification Authority of India, additional solicitor-general Tushar Mehta told a five-judge...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Central Information Commission on Tuesday said there should be no delay in payment of pension to senior citizens on the pretext of linking accounts with a beneficiary's Aadhaar number. "In the name of linking to Aadhaar or other such conditions, the public authority cannot delay the payment of pension to senior citizens and retired employees in view of their post-retirement requirements," information commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said. He said...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Sunday that he was personally not in favour of linking Aadhaar cards with electoral photo-identity cards (EPIC) of voters as the two serve different purposes. "I am not saying this as an IT minister... My personal opinion is Aadhaar should not be linked with the voter ID card," Prasad said at an event here. He said the government was not...