-The Indian Express The Supreme Court is hearing a petition challenging making Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits under various social welfare schemes of the government. The next hearing is in the first week of November. New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Wednesday said the Aadhaar law will “pass the test of constitutionality” and that it is important to build “ironwalls” to protect people’s data. He said the Aadhaar scheme announced by the...

-The Hindu Providing food to the poor or targeted groups at subsidised prices is fully WTO-compatible Transformational changes are taking place in India currently, improving the way we live. These changes are impacting all our lives in small or significant ways. It is gratifying to know that the citizens at large are happy withthese changes. However, forsome who have fed themselves on the fodder that such changes are not for the near...

-Deccan Herald New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra on Monday said the government is likely to scrap public distribution scheme (PDS) system and transfer money directly to the accounts of poor beneficiaries after getting encouraging results from Haryana and Puducherry. Modi stated this during his Monday's informal discussion with BJP MPs from Delhi, J-K, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. According to a press statement issued on the outcome of interaction with...

-Livemint.com The Aadhaar project is a textbook example of how not to design and execute a public policy initiative in India When it was first launched in 2009, Aadhaar signalled a promise to repair the corroded plumbing of India’s leaky public delivery systems. The unique biometric identity would help reduce duplicate and ghost entries in the list of beneficiaries of government schemes, and pave the way for Direct Benefit Transfers to them...

-The Hindu Business Line The Government must clear policy bottlenecks for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana to meet its ambitious target Amidst the government’s celebrations on completing three years in office, one flagship scheme remains a massive — and challenging — opportunity: Housing for all by 2022. The groundbreaking, affordable housing initiative backing this promise, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), plans to provide homes to 18 million households in urban India...