-The Indian Express It is easy to see why the Unique Identity (UID) project, also known as Aadhaar, has caught the imagination of many administrators, economists and policymakers. Identity verification is a routine problem in India and Aadhaar sounds like a foolproof solution. The idea is really smart and the technology is cutting-edge. After the initial hurdle of universal enrolment, numerous applications are possible: monitoring the attendance of government employees, linking...

-Economic and Political Weekly The key to improving the quality of healthcare services in India and reducing costs at the same time can be found by enacting legislation which lays down minimum standards of patient care. In the absence of such standards and the reluctance of health insurance companies to standardise either price or quality, healthcare services continue to be expensive and of doubtful quality. Developing standards of patient care by...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: Seeking to spur agricultural growth, the Centre will soon launch a comprehensive plan to provide 'Soil Health Card' to all farmers across the country. The card will carry crop-wise recommendations of nutrients/fertilizers required for farms, making it possible for farmers to improve productivity by wisely using inputs. A computerized system will be developed, allowing local agriculture science centres to keep details of 'soil test' results. Soil...

-Down to Earth Thousands of people working under NREGS bring a 38 km stream back from the dead in Uttar Pradesh Thirty nine-year-old Ram Ishwar gave up farming to pull a rickshaw outside the railway station in Uttar Pradesh's Fatehpur town. He says scarcity of water and a resultant increase in the cost of irrigation rendered farming unprofitable. Wheat production from his 0.4 hectare (ha) farmland shrank from one tonne to half...

-DNA Ahmedabad: Of three government schools of classes I to V surveyed in Kheda district, none maintained the pupil-room ratio according to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education. Similarly, 100% of the 12 schools surveyed in Kutch did not maintain the ratio. According to the RTE Act, 2009, every proposed classroom should have a carpet area of 8 sq feet for every student, in addition to a 60...