-The Times of India   The Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Bill, cleared by the cabinet last week, signals that the government`s heart is in the right place. Under its provisions, coal firms must share 26% of their net profits with project area residents, while non-coal miners will have to provide them a sum equal to royalty paid to state governments. No system is in place at present to properly compensate...

The Planning Commission's laughable estimates of the ‘poverty line' follow from a mistake in method that it made 30 years ago and has clung to ever since. The affidavit that the Planning Commission recently submitted before the Supreme Court stating that a person is to be considered ‘poor' only if his or her monthly spending is below Rs.781 (Rs.26 a day) in the rural areas and Rs.965 (Rs.32 a day) in...

An ambitious scheme to make higher-education loans more attractive to poor students has failed to meet its target because of inadequate marketing and lack of coordination among various agencies. The scheme, launched in 2010 by the human resource development (HRD) ministry, gives full interest subsidy (a student will not have to pay the interest for the loan he or she avails) to students from families earning less than Rs.4.5 lakh a...

Media Reports The UID Aadhaar project planning and system design shortcomings and security risks at the national (or macro) level have been discussed elsewhere.1 The present article views the Aadhaar project at the system operational level, with practical considerations based on observed and probable functioning at the service delivery end. Consider the following report in a local daily, The Mysore Bugle: Food riots: PDS outlet vandalised Mysore: August 2, 2015—The PDS outlet in Ashokpuram...

-The Business Standard   Several Indian states have deployed information technology (IT) to improve the operations of their public distribution system (PDS). Madhya Pradesh has gone the farthest in this regard by issuing ration cards to only those with unique identification (UID) numbers. The state is also using the services of an IT firm. Since an IT system takes some time to be put in place and then some more to get...