-The Economic Times The Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme commenced with the initial rollout in 20 districts covering seven scholarship schemes. Another 23 districts will be covered by March this year. The intention is to link all government benefits to Aadhaar-based identification of beneficiaries and to channelise the cash benefits through Aadhaar-enabled bank accounts. Irrespective of the merits of translating some benefits delivered in kind like in PDS into their cash-equivalent, for...

-The Guardian In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages? Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually...

-The Economic Times Food inflation in India, as measured by food articles price index, has averaged 11.3% for the period FY 2008-09 to December 2012, with a maximum of 15.6% in 2010-11 and minimum of 7.3% in 2011-12. In December 2012, wheat prices stood 23% higher than in December 2011, and rice prices 17% higher in the same period. Although this spurt in wheat and rice prices in the face of...

-The Times of India Justice J S Verma Committee did not intend to include sex workers who are in the profession out of their own free will. Sex workers have been protesting against the committee's recommendations, accepted by the government in the proposed Section 370 in the ordinance on the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2012, which defined prostitution as exploitation. The National Network of Sex Workers had sought a clarification from the...

-Economic and Political Weekly A cost-benefi t analysis by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy of the benefits from Aadhaar integration with seven schemes throws up huge benefi ts that are based almost entirely on unrealistic assumptions. Further, the report does not take into account alternative technologies that could achieve the same or similar savings, possibly at lower cost. Reetika Khera (reetika.khera@gmail.com) is at the Institute of Economic Growth on...