-The Indian Express UIDAI: PM wants 100 cr enrolment at earliest, linking Aadhaar to passports, benefits. Putting to rest speculation about the fate of the UPA government's flagship Aadhaar project and the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday sought a 100-crore enrolment target under Aadhaar at the "earliest", also asking officials to look into linking passports with its data. The Prime Minister also gave a decisive push to all...

-The Indian Express Modi government's potato policy will prove counter-productive. Onions and potatoes take centre-stage again. Having secured a mandate based on people's unhappiness with continuously high and painful food inflation, the government's inability to control prices is, understandably, sending shivers down the BJP's spine. Fulfilling the aspirations of urban voters and winning over a thoroughly exacting Delhi electorate, where re-elections are due, are essential to the BJP's game plan to succeed....

-The Hindu     The government believes that the expectation of a poor monsoon and consequent fall in harvests has encouraged traders and middlemen to hoard food staples such as onion and potato. For a government that rode to power on the back of widespread dissatisfaction among people over runaway prices, especially of food commodities, the rising cost of onion and potato are posing a major challenge now. Though there is no reason to...

-Live Mint On a recent trip to rural Bihar, I spent several hours talking with headmasters and cluster officers about how to improve children's learning in primary school. Their responses were primarily complaints directed at others. Complaints about the administrative tasks expected of them; about the Right To Education Act's no-detention policy; about parents and their limited Interest in the school and about students who rarely attended school. At no point...

-The Indian Express Despite the bureaucratic mindset, there are also tremendous positive effects. As speculation mounts by the day that the Modi government is thinking of winding up the Planning Commission, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the relevance of the institution in the context of a rapidly changing Indian economy and society. One way of classifying institutions is in terms of the balance between their potential positive power (PPP) and...