-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Faced with criticism for forcing people to link their Aadhaar numbers with their mobile connection, thereby creating scope for privacy invasion, the government is considering the option of allowing other identity proofs to complete the verification process. These IDs could include ration card, driver's license and passport. "We are ready to explore other options. We are looking at whether a ration card, or a driver's license,...

-The Hindu Business Line The global pulse trade is in a tailspin. After living in a comfort zone provided by India in the form of a large ready market for long years, pulse exporting nations — many of them cultivating the leguminous crop with India as the primary target market — are now forced to grapple with new ground realities. To be sure, not only has India, the world’s largest producer, processor,...

-Livemint.com Global Hunger Index 2017 is a grim reminder of the huge disconnect between India’s relatively high levels of growth and its low ranks on human development It took the death of 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari from Jharkhand’s Simdega district to remind the country that hunger and starvation of young children is still a reality in India. This was not the first such incident. Last month, three brothers in Karnataka also died under...

-The Indian Express Move to criminalise cyber speech will add impunity to power How to police a cyber space that has acquired the instincts of Frankenstein’s monster? In pursuit of answers, an expert committee submitted an interim report to the Union Home Ministry a couple of weeks ago. The recommended amendments to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) are noteworthy for two reasons. One, they bring within the ambit of IPC (through amendments...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Tens of thousands of would-be schoolteachers have been left in the lurch with the Central Teacher Eligibility Test, usually held twice a year, not being conducted at all this year because of a pending guidelines revision. Although the states too hold their own Teacher Eligibility Tests, it's the central test alone that facilitates the selection of elementary teachers at central schools such as the Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalayas...