-The Economic Times Imagine a rural family of five. Mom. Dad. Two kids. And Grandma. Assume too that they are below the poverty line. The day is coming when this family will have to give its biometrics out to myriad agencies.  You know that Nandan Nilekani's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or the Registrar General's National Population Register (NPR) has been collecting biometrics for a while now.  But a set of other...

Tata Motors welcomes verdict; Mamata says people’s choice will prevail In a setback to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court struck down the “Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act of 2011”, terming it unconstitutional and void. The law was enacted in 2011 to vest farm land acquired by the previous government for Tata Motors’ Nano small car factory in Singur...

-The Economic Times If Dr Devi Prasad Shetty's vision comes true, most Indians will have access to quality healthcare. Dr Shetty says the cost of healthcare in India can come down by 50% in the next 5-10 years, and this will be forced on the hospitals by the government if service providers do not get their act together. "If you are going to say the cost of a heart surgery is...

-The Indian Express Push on FDI in multibrand retail could be the trigger for UPA 2’s image makeover For a government with its back to the wall and pretty much nowhere to go, it’s time to simply get on with it. Now that the Parliament’s budget session is over, the presidential candidate has been announced and the next round of state Elections is still some way off, the government is beginning to...

-The Hindustan Times The tribals of Gadchiroli seem to be living in perennial fear of naxalites. The threat is so visible that it prevented the tribals from filing nominations for the June 24 mid-term panchayat Elections in 139 gram panchayats. The Maoists have left the Gadchiroli district administration paralyzed. To a large extent, they have also been able to derail local governance by instilling fear among the leaders of different political...