-The Economic Times Imagine a rural family of five. Mom. Dad. Two kids. And Grandma. Assume too that they are below the poverty line. The day is coming when this family will have to give its biometrics out to myriad agencies.  You know that Nandan Nilekani's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or the Registrar General's National Population Register (NPR) has been collecting biometrics for a while now.  But a set of other...

It was due to a civil society struggle that the government only last year removed the bar on outsiders from participating in the social audit of projects executed under its showcase legislation of MGNREGA. Barring Andhra Pradesh, no state has so far implemented this reform. Yet, in its report for the ongoing universal periodic review (UPR) before the UN Human Rights Council, India cited the social audit clause in MGNREGA...

The proposed criminalisation of consensual sex between youngsters in the 16-18 age group is seen as regressive and in denial of social realities. THE minimum age for consensual sex has been raised from 16 to 18 in the amended Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011, recently approved by the Union Cabinet. If approved by Parliament, this will make sexual activity with a person below 18 a criminal offence,...

A government panel has recommended the enactment of a “comprehensive, standalone law” on the so-called “honour killings”, handing equal punishment to the killers, plotters and the instigators at kangaroo courts. “The current provisions in the Indian Penal Code are inadequate in dealing with these acts of crime,” says the Planning Commission’s steering committee on women’s agency and child rights for the 12th Five-Year Plan. Its report, posted on the plan panel’s website...

When India embarked on its “unique ID” project in the fall of 2010, pledging to distribute unique 12-digit numbers to 1.2 billion people, the hope was that hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t have a passport, driver’s license or other credible identity document would get one – and with it, a ticket to essential government and private sector services. A new survey led by Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New...