A Cabinet panel headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will decide on Wednesday if the government should spend nearly Rs 15,000 crore more to duplicate an ongoing exercise to capture biometric data. The government had earlier authorised the Registrar General of India under the home ministry to create the National Population Register, a task that required RGI to collect biometric data of nearly one billion people and get them an...

-PTI The government on Monday announced convergence of the Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) scheme with the rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA for creating more durable assets in the country.  "Statistics and Programme Implementation Minister Srikant Kumar Jena has approved convergence of MPLAD scheme with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)," an official statement said here.  According to the statement, it was done after government received representations to converge...

-Express News Service   The stay order issued by court over reserving 25 percent seats in schools for students from economically weaker sections (EWS) has delayed the implementation of the Act in the coming academic session. While the quota is mandated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act, there is no clarity on who will foot the bill. The ambiguity over fees is a major concern for private school managements. “The unaided...

-The Telegraph   Jhargaon holds out hope that success is possible, even in Jharkhand. Two years after it was chosen as a model, over 1,000 residents of this nondescript hamlet of Gumla, 110km from the state capital, want to junk their BPL cards. For, self respect does not allow them to be claimants of government dole. If self-sufficiency is their goal, the people of Jhargaon, in Toto panchayat of Gumla Sadar block, 10km...

-The Times of India   BJP on Saturday said inclusion of all Indian residents in the Unique Identification (UID) number scheme would present a threat to the nation's security by giving illegal migrants rights of citizens. "In many parts of India, infiltrators from Bangladesh are there, there are people from Pakistan living in parts, they are not citizens of India, but terror, trouble and destabilization is fomented by them," party spokesperson Ravi Shankar...