-Caravan Magazine Since the Aadhaar programme, which aims to provide Indian citizens with unique identification numbers, was launched in 2009, several petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court that oppose its application by the government. These petitions have challenged the Aadhaar programme on various grounds: the government’s right to ask the citizens to provide biometric data for Aadhaar verification without adequate safeguards against its potential misuse; the legality of the...

-TheWire.in Data compiled by the mines ministry notes several thousand hectares of mineable area has potentially been prevented from being auctioned, saving the companies that own them money and costing the exchequer in terms of revenue foregone. New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government changed regulations meant for protection of tribal rights, forests and environment in order to ensure that more than 130 mines do not face fresh auctions and are instead retained...

-TheWire.in Using tax collection numbers as signifiers of robust economic activity may be highly optimistic. One of the most interesting questions in Indian macroeconomics today is – how are we faring since late 2016? In this article, I seek to analyse data on tax revenues and obtain some clues about the performance of the economy. In a press release published on January 9, the central government reported the following increases in tax collections...

-The Financial Express New Delhi: The states have not been lifting the entire volume of foodgrains allocated by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for the various social sector schemes including National Food Security Act (NFSA), mid-day meal and other welfare schemes for the past many years due to inadequate storage facilities. According to official data, in FY16, only 84% of wheat and 94% of rice allocated to states for distribution for...

-The Hindu Business Line Foodgrain output down 28.7% as paddy area shrinks Hyderabad: In the recent numbers released by the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB), Telangana stood second only to Maharashtra, with 1,400 farmers and farm labourers ending lives in the year 2015-16. The State had accounted for nearly 10 per cent of all 12,000 farm suicides reported that year. The latest numbers gathered by the Telangana government corroborated the serious distress in the...