-TheWire.in A new report has recommended extending the scheme to all women, aged and infirm undertrials, claiming that it has many social and economic benefits for both the state and the inmates. A study on open prisons and parole practices in Rajasthan suggests that the “successful system,” operational in the state since 1955, be emulated across the country. The study, initiated by the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority (RSLSA) and Rajasthan high court...

-PTI NEW DELHI: More than 200 central and state government websites publicly displayed details such as names and addresses of some Aadhaar beneficiaries, the Unique Identification Authority of India has said. The Aadhaar issuing body added, in response to an RTI query, that it took note of the breach and got the data removed from those websites. It did not specify when the breach took place. It said Aadhaar details have never been made...

-TheWire.in Based on a militarised notion of ‘targeting’, such welfare policies deny citizens the right to basic services. In an incisive analysis on anti-poverty and other Social Security programmes, Professor Amartya Sen astutely asks why the notion of targeting, which is essentially a military concept, is so routinely invoked in analytical discourses on basic welfare rights for the people as well as in policy framing in this respect. Indeed, why would an...

-The Times of India blog With the approaching winter the air quality in many Indian cities, especially in Delhi, becomes a public health hazard. Something so fundamental as breathing easy can no longer be taken for granted. It’s a wake-up call worthy of a civic revolution. For decades now those who could afford it (very much including this writer), have seceded from public services. The Indian elite send their children to expensive...

-Tehelka.com Learning from the recent starvation deaths in Jharkhand, the nation’s leaders must pay heed to the necessity of ensuring food security for all Food and hunger have been important issues this past month and the news has not been welcome. First it was India’s dismal rank in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017 released by the International Policy Research Institute rankings — 100th among 119 countries. GHI looks at undernourishment, child...