-The Indian Express Rajasthan/ Delhi: Three states where the UPA govt has rolled out direct cash transfers go to polls later this year. On the ground, the scheme has not quite turned out the game-changer the government reckoned it would. A frail Gori Sahaab, 90, instructs his son to pour mustard oil into a tiny diya in his one-room house. He once used a kerosene lamp but has stopped buying that fuel....
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KS Puttaswamy, retired justice of the Karnataka High Court interviewed by Deepa Kurup
-The Hindu Former Justice K.S. Puttaswamy, who went to court against the linking of state benefits to the UID scheme, says much money has been wasted on the ‘dangerous' project The Supreme Court order restraining the linking of services and benefits to the 12-digit Aadhaar number has placed in doubt ambitious plans by the Centre and several State governments to make the ‘voluntary' Aadhaar scheme mandatory for access to services and subsidies....
More »India Matters: Food secure in the Capital -Sutapa Deb
-NDTV The debate on the merits and demerits of the National Food Security Bill went on for months. But most of it seems disconnected to the reality on the ground to the churning lakhs of low income families are experiencing as they register for the new scheme. There is anxiety and desperation to get subsidised foodgrain. In the office of the Food and Supply Officer in Delhi's north east district, many have...
More »How the biometric system has failed hard working people -R Krishna Kumar
-The Hindu Mysore (Karnataka): The much-lauded biometric ration card system is believed to be fool proof and expected to bring the public distribution system (PDS) in step with the digital era. However, ironically, the feedback from the ground indicates that it is rejecting the poor and the impoverished it was intended to benefit. The biometric authentication system installed at the PDS outlets fails to establish the identity of many genuine beneficiaries, mostly...
More »More bite, less to chew -Latha Jishnu, Jyotika Sood and Suchitra M
-Down to Earth The most controversial aspect of the food security law is the restructuring of the public distribution system to cover an unprecedented 67 per cent of the population, most of them in the poorer states. LATHA JISHNU, JYOTIKA SOOD and SUCHITRA M explain why there are winners and losers in the new dispensation and how states with better PDS will have to find huge resources to keep their numbers...
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