Kerala on Wednesday raised serious apprehensions on the effectiveness of the proposed national food security law as it could remove large number of poor families from the beneficiary list besides putting enormous financial burden on the state. Shibu Baby John, food and civil supplies minister, Kerala said the centre must apply separate socio-economic critieria for choosing beneficiaries under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) as because of better human index of...

The Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is set to replicate, at the national level, Jharkhand's success in disbursing money to people at their doorsteps. On Tuesday, the UIDAI launched its unique identification or Aadhaar-based platform to link public entitlements to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. It would mean that governments would be able to directly deposit subsidies into the bank accounts of beneficiaries of schemes such as the Public Distribution System, old-age...

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee took on the food ministry and publicly backed UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani's proposal to set up a new independent agency manned by professionals to computerise the public distribution system (PDS) as part of the reforms agenda and use the Aadhaar number as a base for the changes. Mukherjee was speaking at the meeting of state agriculture and food ministers in Delhi on Wednesday. TOI had earlier reported how...

-The Hindustan Times   The government is drafting the framework of a “white paper” on black money that it is likely to present before Parliament in the forthcoming budget session. The white paper, however, is unlikely to disclose any names of individuals or entities, despite the opposition’s demand to make public the names of those who are found have to stashed money in banks in overseas tax havens, sources told HT. The finance...

Interview with D.N. Jha, historian of ancient India and the author of ‘The Myth of the Holy Cow'. IN his career spanning more than 25 years, Dwijendra Narayan Jha, an eminent historian of ancient India, has dispelled many Hindutva myths. He has used ancient Indian literary and archaeological sources to show that much of the Hindutva propaganda is based on false premises. His book The Myth of the Holy Cow shows...