-The Hindu Far from creating dependency, evidence shows that social protection increases both on-farm and non-farm activities, strengthening livelihoods and lifting incomes Today, on World Food Day, the world has a lot to celebrate. As a global community, we’ve made real progress in fighting global hunger and poverty in recent decades. A majority of the countries monitored by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation — 72 out of the 129 —...

-The Indian Express Farmers are unanimous that Punjab hasn’t seen such bad days, with one or the other crop failing in consecutive seasons — and now basmati selling even below parmal. Jalandhar: When farmers in Punjab began taking the harvested grain from their Pusa-1509 superfine basmati paddy crop early this month, they were shocked to see it fetch rates below not just half of last year’s levels, but even the official minimum...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Desperate to make Aadhaar usage universal to optimize implementation of welfare schemes, the Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it was ready to promise in writing that it would be completely voluntary for citizens to obtain and use the unique identification (UID) number. Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi told a five-judge bench comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justices M Y Eqbal, C Nagappan,...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: At a time when the Centre is planning to link Aadhaar for government schemes and a large number of people are lining up for enrolment, an RTI application has revealed that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has identified more than 25,000 duplicate Aadhaar numbers in the country till August. Vinod Ranganathan of onlineRTI.com, who filed the application, said he had sought state-wise number of dubious/fake...

-The Indian Express The central message of Angus Deaton’s work: Becoming richer is not necessarily the same thing as becoming better-off. In the preface to his magisterial 2013 book The Great Escape, Angus Deaton thanks his teachers. “Richard Stone was perhaps my most profound influence,” Deaton writes, “from him I learned about measurement — how little we can say without it and how important it is to get it right.” Important, indeed....