The Assam government will introduce biometric smart cards for beneficiaries in three districts of the state on a pilot basis in order to make the public distribution system more transparent and efficient. Assam food and civil supplies minister Nazrul Islam today announced that the Centre has cleared a Rs 8-crore proposal submitted by the government to computerise the system in three districts. Under the scheme, the beneficiaries will be issued biometric ration...

Services and goods associated with information and communications technologies (ICTs) are creating opportunities for the poor, but those sources of income are unevenly distributed and not always sustainable, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said today in a new report. In Kenya, for example, there are now more than 18,000 agents for the M-PESA mobile telephone-based money transfer service, and Bangladesh has some 350,000 “village phone ladies,” UNCTAD...

To avoid graft in the implementation of the Nat-ional Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), e-muster olls will be launched for job seekers in the state from November 1. The implementation of NREGS has been facing a lot of criticism of graft ever since it was introduced a few years ago. In order to arrest such graft, the NREGS implementing agency, the district water management agency, is creating a database of...

Despite recording robust economic growth over the last couple of decades and spending thousands of crores of rupees on subsidising foodgrain and other programmes aimed at improving the nation’s social indicators, India ranks a low 67 among 84 countries on the Global Hunger Index, 2010. The country has actually dropped two levels since last year on the index published jointly by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe and Concern...

Delhi is an anxious city this monsoon season, struggling to meet an onerous deadline. Preparations continue at a feverish pace for the 19th Commonwealth Games (CWG), which will bear down on the Indian metropolis October 3-14, along with some 8,500 athletes from the 71 states and territories that were once part of the British Empire. Around-the-clock construction and spells of heavy monsoon rain have turned Delhi into a swirl of mud...