-The Hindu   Revised pact with Switzerland will allow India to obtain banking information in specific cases: Finance Minister   Having impressed upon the G-20 nations the need to adopt automatic sharing of banking and tax-related information at the Paris Ministerial meeting last weekend, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday sought to highlight the “noteworthy” achievements and the progress made back home in unearthing unaccounted income. In his inaugural address at the ‘Economic Editors'...

Nandan Nilekani led Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has hit a Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) roadblock. The government had refused to make unique number or Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme unless all residents are covered. The reason given was that MGNREGA is a universal scheme and anyone can demand work. Unless all resident in a district have...

-Live Mint   The poor remain poor because they lack resources. And the formal finance sector does not want to lend them because they are too poor, costs are high and they hardly have anything to offer as collateral. That is, they are trapped in the vicious circle of poverty. This was so until the arrival of microfinance—successfully demonstrated by the Bangladesh model that the poor are “good” borrowers. It was held...

Both Nandan Nilekani and his well-wishers are today, two years after he set out on his unique identification (UID) journey, wiser if not a more disillusioned lot. Right at the outset he had acknowledged concerns over privacy issues, saying, “India does not really have a privacy law. So all this will act as an impetus to define the privacy framework for Indians.” That gaping hole is still staring us in...

Mihir Shah, member of the Planning Commission and chairman of the committee to redraft rules and guidelines of NREGA, tells Sreelatha Menon that the Act may also cover farm labourers. The consortium of NGOs that recommended changes in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was founded by you, but your suggestions have been criticised. You seem to consider it a lack of demand rather than a supply problem. First, you should...