India has launched its first high-tech census. Citizens will be photographed and will give 10 fingerprints each. The resultant database will be used to issue identity cards, and later smart cards, to all.  All Indians will welcome high-tech smart cards. Yet the technological lead has been taken not by the census commissioner but, astonishingly, by Bihar. This state has just completed a pilot project for smart cards in Patna district,...

Flaws In The PDS… Poor verification norms, over two crore bogus BPL cards Over 1.2 crore BPL families don’t have a ration card No monitoring, resulting in pilferage, gaps in delivery, poor quality foodgrains Poor profit margins a major cause for corruption Lack of information hinders benefits from reaching the poor …and the Solutions Base fair price shops on new business model The Centre takes ‘responsibility’ for delivery in states Make verification...

Even as the Right to Education came into effect on Thursday, the countdown began for lakhs of unrecognised schools across the country against whom action can be taken under the new law unless they get themselves regularized within the next three years. The task of enforcing this regularization will be humungous if studies indicating the proliferation of unrecognized schools are to be believed. In 2005, in a survey in seven...

One hardly needs a reminder that the Right to Education is different from the others enshrined in the Constitution, in that the beneficiary cannot demand it nor fight a legal battle when the right is denied or violated.  Now that India's children have a right to receive at least eight years of education, the gnawing question is whether it will remain on paper or become a reality. One hardly needs...

The draft food security bill studiedly sidesteps the real problem An offending official disconnect with the hungry millions of India has been perpetrated by the very group aiming to improve their lot. In the minutes of its meeting of March 12, the empowered Group of Ministers, which cleared a draft food security bill for consideration of the Union cabinet, recorded this audacious passage: “The definition of food security should be limited...