-The Hindu Ministry report names groups opposed to mining and sale of tribal land The Home Ministry has said in its annual report that at least two civil rights groups working for tribal people in Odisha and Jharkhand were allegedly acting as a front organisation for the Maoists and were using “displacement of local communities” as their main plank. The Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti (NSS) in Odisha and the Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan...

-The Hindu A recent Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) publication has brought to the fore startling revelations about the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in the country inc- luding the fact that no base line surveys have been conducted among more than half of such groups. “Our findings revealed shocking facts, of the 75 PVTGs, base line surveys exists for about 40 groups, even after declaring them as PVTGs,” states the publication:...

-The Indian Express A large new study, releasing today, seeks to understand the fundamental bases of the choices India makes while voting in elections. The study seeks to document the ideas and attitudes that frame the country’s larger political culture. There is a lack of over-time data on how Indians think about intercommunity relations, relations between citizens and the government, and the nature of the political community. To fill this gap, the...

-The Hindu Business Line Aadhaar does more damage than good in welfare programmes It is widely believed that Aadhaar-Based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) is necessary to improve the delivery of welfare programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), Public Distribution System (PDS), social security pensions, and so on. This is a misconception. We have been studying these programmes for a decade, focusing mainly on the source of leakages and...

-The Hindu In the last three years, important entitlements for children have been undermined by the Centre The recent notification of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, making Aadhaar compulsory for midday meals in government schools, has attracted the criticism it deserves. This notification serves no clear purpose other than to force children to get enrolled under Aadhaar. The government, unfortunately, managed to create the impression that the notification had been retracted,...