-The Economic Times The government plans to introduce direct cash transfer for food subsidy in six Union Territories and 'willing states' for PDS scheme, taking a key step to plug leakages in welfare schemes. In the pilot project, expected to be rolled out from April, beneficiaries will receive the subsidy amount in their bank accounts, and will buy rice and wheat from the fair price shops. The fair price shops will sell...

-The Business Standard Reetika Khera Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi* “Aadhaar is being made de facto compulsory for welfare schemes. With two-thirds without Aadhaar, they are bound to be denied entitlements” There are three components of the government’s direct benefit transfer scheme — computerisation, extending banking services and linking the benefits with Aadhaar. The real game-changers are the first two, whereas Aadhaar-enabled transfers carry the risk of excluding current beneficiaries. The Central government has...

-Pratirodh.com If Year 2012 earned the sobriquet of “Year of Scams’ due to serial expose of “super social cop” Arvind Kejeriwal, and the year-end tragic death of girl in Delhi gang rape case reminded us about the most ugly manifestation of ‘Republic of Patriarchy’ in India, Year 2013 promises to be a game changer for the fortunes of welfare state in India as well as political fortunes of UPA-2.   If Narendra Modi,...

-The Hindu Difficulty in implementing schemes, owing to conceptual confusion at multiple levels: Khurshid External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday attributed the difficulty in administering and implementing welfare programmes for Muslims to conceptual confusion evident at multiple levels — from courts through policymakers and social scientists and experts. Mr. Khurshid, who previously held charge of the Ministry of Minority Affairs, said a Supreme Court interim stay had facilitated the implementation of four...

-The Indian Express The audacity of the Latehar ambush, which ended with Maoists implanting explosive devices inside the corpses of CRPF men, comes amid security forces’ claims that the rebels are a declining force. What was probably the cruellest ever assault on security forces came at a time police in several states were praising themselves for having contained Maoists. Over the last 14 months, Maoist violence had declined partly because they had...