-Scroll.in   An audit of ration shops after the introduction of Aadhaar revealed that many genuine beneficiaries couldn’t collect food grain due to system glitches. The Modi government’s insistence on the use of Aadhaar, India’s biometrics-based unique identification project, to weed out “ghosts, fakes, duplicates” from Social welfare schemes is counterproductively excluding genuine beneficiaries from the programmes. In Andhra Pradesh, an official audit conducted after ration shops adopted the Aadhaar system revealed that many...

-IPSNews.net UNITED NATIONS: When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics to Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University, the accolade had a significant relevance to the United Nations. The Academy bestowed the honour on the British-born Deaton, 69, primarily for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare.   Deaton’s research reflects some of the socio-economic issues on the U.N. agenda, including poverty alleviation, economic inequalities, consumption patterns, household...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday permitted citizens to voluntarily use Aadhaar cards to avail benefits under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, along with Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and schemes related to pension and PF after the government promised that absence of Aadhaar would not debar people from benefiting from the schemes concerned. The relief came from a bench of Chief Justice HL...

-The Indian Express It is for the first time that the government or the UIDAI has disclosed that a mechanism exists under which a card holder can choose to block the biometric information linked to his Aadhaar card. An Aadhaar card holder can block his card along with his demographic and biometric information if he wants to opt out of the UID system. This lesser-known fact came into public domain on...

-Livemint.com Move to train 10,000 youths aimed at maintaining quality of assets created under rural jobs scheme New Delhi: The ministry of rural development is planning to train at least 10,000 youths in basic civil engineering concepts and engage them in the planning and supervision of works carried out under the ministry’s flagship welfare programme—the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), according to ministry officials who did not want...