-The Hindu With supply of LPG refills turning inadequate, majority of govt. schools depend on firewood for cooking, resulting in health issues among students Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh): The tall claim of the government of successful implementation of the mid-day meal schemes in schools appears frivolous in the district as the supplies of provisions are given a short shrift. Despite twelve LPG cylinders per annum are being provided to each school, over 80...

-Business Standard As on Dec 9, the Aadhaar Payment Bridge saw transactions crossing the 79.4 million mark across govt welfare programmes Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Monday said the number of Aadhaar numbers that have been linked to bank accounts had touched 100 million, enabling these individuals to digitally receive subsidies and benefits under government schemes. It said establishing a link between an Aadhaar number and a bank account makes it...

-Livemint The development economist on the Modi government's initiatives and his stand on them, and MGNREGS The Narendra Modi-led government should consider replacing inefficient subsidies with a basic monthly income for all citizens, says Pranab Bardhan , emeritus professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Bardhan, who recently sparred with economists Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya in a debate over the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS),...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Apart from Tripura and Sikkim, enrolment for Aadhaar cards remains very low in the northeastern states, with Assam at the bottom of the list. According to figures available with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which handles the Aadhaar project, as on November 30, 2014, the percentage of enrolment against the total population was abysmally low in Assam - 0.3 per cent. The trend is not much better in...

-The Hindu Only un-electrified households will be entitled to subsidised fuel New Delhi: Attacking the subsidy regime, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has scrapped the supply of subsidised kerosene through the Public Distribution System (PDS). The Centre plans to write to States asking them to provide subsidised kerosene only to un-electrified households. States which have achieved near 100 per cent electrification will be incentivised to become kerosene-free, a Finance Ministry source told...