-The Indian Express Exclusion and denial of benefits to the poor needs urgent attention The news last month of the starvation death of an 11-year-old girl in the Simdega district in Jharkhand, allegedly because of denial of PDS ration due to Aadhaar linking problems, is appalling. The Aadhaar ecosystem definitely needs to pass a stringent welfare test much more crucially than the privacy test. Aadhaar undeniably has potential, and can perhaps even be...
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Declared dead and denied food, pension -Piyush Srivastava
-The Telegraph Lucknow: For 18 months since April last year, Phulwasi Devi and 34 other elderly residents of Pipariya village couldn't figure out why they hadn't been receiving their subsidised food grain or old-age pension. It took them an 18km bus ride last Monday to find out, from the district social welfare department office, that they had all been marked "dead" in official records.. The 35 victims, who include 20 women and 30...
More »Whiff of starvation in Jharkhand deaths -Shiv Sahay Singh
-The Hindu The public distribution system (PDS) and its disbursal of rations to the poor have come under the scanner in Jharkhand after three persons died recently, allegedly owing to lack of food. What happened? On September 28, Santoshi Kumari, an 11-year-old from Simdega district, died. Her mother, Koyli Devi, said the child died of hunger as the family was not getting rations under the State-run PDS for the past several months. The...
More »Jharkhand 'starvation' death: How Santoshi's village makes it to two meals a day -Prashant Pandey
-The Indian Express Rice is not enough under PDS, but the only thing they can afford; potatoes are cheapest, but still costly; pulses, vegetables are out of the question; biscuits are a luxury; and Aadhaar is well-entrenched. Her hair brushed back, a comb tucked in her bun, Gudiya (26) is at ease this Tuesday afternoon. People from the administration are hovering around her, while six policemen keep a vigil on visitors. Officials...
More »Ration advice to states
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government has instructed states not to deny benefits under the public distribution system to beneficiaries who don't have Aadhaar numbers or haven't linked their Ration Cards to the biometric identifier, the directive coming after a Jharkhand girl's recent death from alleged starvation. It has also asked state governments not to delete eligible households from the list of PDS beneficiaries for non-possession of Aadhaar cards and warned of...
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