-Scroll.in The government has made the school mid-day meal contingent on being enrolled in the identity programme. India has the highest number of malnourished children in the world. You would imagine people in the government would be having sleepless nights thinking of ways to improve the nutrition and health of children. As it turns out, the government believes children need identity numbers more badly than they need food. The government has decided that...

-The Hindu Business Line At present only 84 Central schemes are under DBT New Delhi: Hoping to give a push to its ambitious scheme for cash transfer of subsidies, the Centre is in talks with nodal ministries and implementing agencies to expand the ambit of direct benefit transfer and Aadhaar seeding to all 536 schemes by the end of the year. “The objective is that service providers as well as service receivers in...

-The Times of India Going online was supposed to clean up and smoothen functioning of government schemes like the rural job guarantee scheme MGNREGS. But experience from Jharkhand's tribal districts shows that besides the chronic lack of connectivity, a brand new system of corruption has emerged. And, instead of more transparency, villagers with no knowledge of the electronic way of life are running blindly from pillar to post. Too many flip-flops...

-Scroll.in Public Distribution System dealers have strict instructions not to distribute rations without Aadhaar-linked authentication. Kairi Tidu, aged 10 years or so, was wearing her school uniform at a recent public hearing on the Public Distribution System in Khunti, Jharkhand, because she had nothing better to wear for the occasion. She explained how her family had been deprived of Public Distribution System rice during the last few months. Her parents have migrated...

-The Indian Express Linking of Aadhaar to a growing number of government entitlements is misguided LAST week the Union food ministry issued an unprecedented diktat. It has insisted that each family member must possess an Aadhaar number within four months, to be eligible for subsidised foodgrains under the National Food Security Act. This ties in with the larger plan for all ration shops by 2019 to verify Aadhaar biometrics at every...