-The Indian Express Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to ensure "universal coverage" under Aadhaar by June 2015. According to government officials, the PM set the deadline at a high-level meeting chaired by him in the first week of September. The target was reiterated in the minutes of the meeting circulated to all the concerned departments. Directions have also been issued to the Registrar General...

-The New Indian Express HYDERABAD: The Telangana Government is contemplating a hike in price as well as quantity of rice given on subsidy to white ration card holders through the public Distribution system. The cabinet sub-committee headed by Finance Minister Etela Rajender, which met at the Secretariat Tuesday, discussed the issue plus the mechanism to weed out bogus cards by using the data compiled during the intensive household survey. Later, briefing mediapersons, the...

-The Hindu We could hold people accountable to a reasonable standard of expectation and that's the first step, says economist Esther Duflo In 2003, French-American economist Esther Duflo co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with Abhijit Banerjee and Sendhil Mullainathan. In just over ten years, JPAL has carried out 568 field experiments - or Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) - in 56 countries,...

-The Business Standard In a move that could lessen the Centre's foodgrain procurement burden, it has allowed the Punjab government to purchase and distribute grains in advance to beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) for the next few months. As a result, 800,000-900,000 tonnes, mostly wheat, will not come to the Centre's pool for a while. Punjab is one of the main wheat and rice producers in the country. It had...

-The Hindustan Times The World Bank has submitted a detailed action plan that could help the government meet its objective of supplying power 24x7 in the country, with focus on bringing down Distribution losses, improving infrastructure and expanding solar power. The proposal includes a state-wise turnaround plan for the key seven or eight states that together account for about 80% of the $20 billion (Rs 1.2 lakh crore) annual power Distribution losses. Officials...