When India embarked on its “unique ID” project in the fall of 2010, pledging to distribute unique 12-digit numbers to 1.2 billion people, the hope was that hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t have a passport, driver’s license or other credible identity document would get one – and with it, a ticket to essential government and private sector services. A new survey led by Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New...

Ignoring widespread concern over the safety, efficacy and cost of pentavalent vaccines, India’s central health ministry has, this month, approved inclusion of the prophylactic cocktail in the universal immunisation programme in seven of its provinces. Pentavalent vaccine doses, a cocktail of five antigens in a single shot, confers immunity against five paediatric diseases - diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza type b (Hib), with the last one considered particularly...

The only way to fix the IT laws is to change the way they are made Laws in India relating to the internet are greatly flawed. The only way to fix them would be to fix the way they are made. The Cyber-Laws and E-Security Group in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEIT, ‘DeitY’ according to their website) has proved incapable of making balanced, informed laws and policies. The...

-The Economic Times Economic growth produces prosperity as well as garbage. The faster the economy grows, the more its people consume, and the more garbage they generate. When economic growth is sustained over a long period of time, garbage starts to pile up at a faster pace. Garbage just cannot be wished away even as some of us can move around it with eyes wide shut. It needs to be collected,...

SIC Declares Bank As Public Authority; Invokes Maharaja’s Order, Appointment Of Directors, Removal Of Drabu As Grounds Srinagar, Apr 24: In a significant judgment, the State Information Commission (SIC) on Tuesday ruled that J&K Bank Limited is a Public Authority under Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information Act-2009, entitling people to seek information from the premier financial institution of the State. Announcing the decision, the full Bench of SIC comprising Chief Information...