-The Hindu Business Line The government must universalise social security pensions for the elderly, single women and persons with disabilities and also operationalise the maternity entitlement scheme at the earliest, says Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi. In an interview to BusinessLine, Khera argued against the use of Aadhaar for authentication of beneficiaries and said it has “no role in plugging leakages or in the identification of correct beneficiaries”....

-The Times of India One year ago, on 31 December 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the government would soon provide for maternity benefits of Rs 6,000 per child. He announced this as if it were a new initiative, possibly aimed at sweetening the demonetisation pill. What he did not mention is that maternity entitlements of Rs 6,000 per child had been a legal right of all Indian women since...

-The Indian Express Linking it to ration cards ends up denying poor their rightful entitlements In September 2017, 11-year-old Santoshi, resident of Simdega district of Jharkhand, succumbed to starvation. According to her mother, she died “asking for rice, but there was not a single grain at home”. She was deprived of her subsidised ration as her family’s ration card was cancelled because it was not linked to Aadhaar. Marandi in Jharkhand met...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has stumped the Centre by wondering how it intends to issue Aadhaar cards to innumerable homeless persons in the country in the absence of a residential identity. The court also wondered how the homeless could be given any national identity at all when they do not have any individual proof of residence. "A person who is homeless, how will you give an Aadhaar card?" a bench...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Aadhaar issuer, which had lodged a police complaint against The Tribune newspaper and its reporter Rachna Khaira for a report on the sale of Aadhaar data, appeared to backtrack on Monday after a tweet by its minister. On January 4, the newspaper had published a report saying racketeers were selling access to Aadhaar data for Rs 500, which would enable buyers to open fake bank accounts or...