For a change, Mangal Bedia did not board a crammed bus today and travel 15km to withdraw his old-age pension from a bank. The 70-year-old from Dohakatu village in Ramgarh district, along with 100-odd fellow elders, became the first citizens to access old-age pension by using their Aadhaar numbers with handheld ATMs on the doorstep. The banking service reached their village, thanks to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Until today,...

Before filing papers, prospective candidates enter into a tacit deal with media, says EC   Even as it is tightening the noose around the media-candidates' nexus to thwart “paid news” instances through its district media committees and expenditure observers, the Election Commission has come to know about new strategies worked out by them to break the rules. “We have received reports that such ‘paid news' transactions had taken place in some instances in...

-The Telegraph Income tax officials today searched the house and two dozen properties of a liquor baron said to be close to Mayawati, the simultaneous raids apparently throwing up a chest that needed gas-cutters to prise open. TV reports claimed the chest — found in the basement of a Noida mall said to be owned by Gurdeep Singh Chadha — could be stashed with notes worth over Rs 100 crore, but late...

At a time when paper and plastic money is the pivot of pecuniary transactions, a postgraduate in statistics from Ranchi University has turned the age-old barter system into the bedrock of a unique cradle in a hamlet on the outskirts of the capital. Students of Bhavna Vikas Vidyalaya at Konki village in Kanke block, some 20km from Ranchi, are basking in academic glory in lieu of vegetables. Yes, you heard that...

An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...