-The Hindu Business Line One man with a backpack is determined to introduce the children of Kalagachia, West Bengal, to the joys of reading The conductor calls out “Mallikpur brickfield!” as the bus grinds to a halt. Across the road a tall chimney is visible — part of the brick-making outfit that this place is named after. A narrow sand-and-gravel path snakes from the road, through paddy fields, towards a village. The...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government aims to transform India into a digitally empowered society through its Digital India programme but it may have a task at hand with a recent survey showing that only 18 per cent of those in the age group of 14-29 years in villages and 49 per cent in cities were able to operate a computer in 2014. Indicating the Herculean task awaiting the government,...

-The Hindu Business Line BusinessLine goes to villages, including those visited in 2014, to understand the progress of the ambitious National Optical Fibre Network. Unused infrastructure and low awareness tell a story of missed links In one corner of the Ramnagar village panchayat office, in Panisagar block of Tripura, is a defunct four-year-old computer. The machine, connected with a 10 mbps broadband line was supposed to bring digital services to this remote...

-Frontline The government’s passage of the Aadhaar Bill in complete disregard of even basic parliamentary procedures and in subversion of an ongoing judicial process puts at risk a number of constitutional rights and liberties of citizens. The benefits cited are just ploys to realise a neoliberal dream. “Congressmen are dancing as if [Aadhaar] was a herb for all cures. With the Supreme Court pulling up the Centre, people are now seeking...

-Business Standard Need open deliberation on systems to avoid misuse Now that a law is being put in place to validate the Aadhaar programme, the focus must shift to the rules which will be framed under it to work the system. It has to be ensured that these rules reflect the spirit and content of the new law. In scrutinising the rules, three primary issues will have to be kept in...