-The Economist   Opposition to the world’s biggest biometric identity scheme is growing FOR a country that fails to meet its most basic challenges—feeding the hungry, piping clean water, fixing roads—it seems incredible that India is rapidly building the world’s biggest, most advanced, biometric database of personal identities. Launched in 2010, under a genial ex-tycoon, Nandan Nilekani, the “unique identity” (UID) scheme is supposed to roll out trustworthy, unduplicated identity numbers based on...

-The Economist   The world’s population will reach 7 billion at the end of October. Don’t panic IN 1950 the whole population of the earth—2.5 billion—could have squeezed, shoulder to shoulder, onto the Isle of Wight, a 381-square-kilometre rock off southern England. By 1968 John Brunner, a British novelist, observed that the earth’s people—by then 3.5 billion—would have required the Isle of Man, 572 square kilometres in the Irish Sea, for its standing...

In planning, pursuit of profit was not seen as being in the social interest in the post-Independence years, but now profit is the sole motive. FOR two decades now the Government of India has pursued a policy of accelerated liberalisation, dismantling controls, diluting regulations and making the state a facilitator of private investment. It is not that the presence of the state has diminished during this period, but that its role...

As higher urbanisation has long-term consequences for governance, the latest numbers should serve as a heads-up to the planners. More Indians are moving into towns now. According to the 2011 Census, the urban population grew by 90.99 million between 2001 and 2011. The absolute increase in the rural population over this period was 90.47 million. Put differently, urban population grew by 31.8 per cent, a little over two-and-a-half times the corresponding...

Finally, there's some good news for the United Progressive Alliance government. Consumption numbers for the past six years show that real incomes have grown much faster under the Congress-led coalition than during the National Democratic Alliance era. What's more, poverty is trending down and rural wages are growing smartly. The 2009-10 survey by the National Statistical Survey Organisation (NSSO) shows real spending by each person in rural India rose 6.3%...