It is a manifestation of the Indian summer — the electricity goes out momentarily at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) head office just before an interview with the director general and mission director, Ram Sewak Sharma. Despite glitches, mostly more consequential than power outages, Sharma reveals that it has been a busy few months for the UIDAI, after it reached the mandated number of 200 million enrolments by March...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

-The Telegraph On a full-attendance day at a business process outsourcing centre in a village in Uttar Pradesh, 40 boys and girls work on computers, each of their desktops powered by rooftop solar panels that turn sunlight into electricity. Their workplace, a two-storey building, is the only structure in Sonari, a village of about 1,700 people and located about 50km from Lucknow on the road to Sitapur, where electricity is guaranteed nine...

-The Business Standard The government must prepare for below-normal monsoon A massive 30 per cent deficiency in the monsoon rainfall in June, coupled with an anticipated low precipitation in September, may add to the government’s difficulties in achieving its growth and fiscal deficit targets. Agriculture may not be the only victim of poor rainfall. Its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) may have dipped to mere 15 per cent but it still...

Punjab’s agricultural sector grew at 1.6 per cent during the 11th Plan against the national average of 3.41 per cent. The growth is tardy owing to near saturation in productivity. The rural debts in Punjab are estimated to be Rs 35,000 crore. The number of indebted rural households in Punjab is 66 per cent, third highest in the country after Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The Government of India’s debt...