-The Telegraph New Delhi: A clutch of legal amendments the Narendra Modi government has introduced to allow corporate political donors to mask their contributions drags the world's largest democracy against global currents of rising transparency in electoral funding, analysts and activists have warned. From Brazil to Bangladesh, and Croatia to Cyprus, countries of diverse sizes and varied histories with democracy have over the past decade adopted laws and rules aimed at making...

-The Indian Express New national commission for backward classes must address the gaps and lags in the Mandal project The government’s decision to set up a National Commission for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (NCSEdBC) in place of the existing National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) meets long-standing demands. The Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEdBCs), and the Forum of BC MPs have asked for its constitution and the NCBC and...

-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 Eleven reasons why the Aadhaar is not just non-smart but also insecure Aadhaar is insecure because it is based on biometrics. Biometrics is surveillance technology, a necessity for any State. However, surveillance is much like salt in cooking: essential in tiny quantities, but counterproductive even if slightly in excess. Biometrics should be used for targeted surveillance, but this technology should not be used in e-governance for the following...

-The Hindu Business Line From a severely critical stand against Aadhaar in 2014, the Modi-led BJP in power has made a sharp U-turn to bulldoze its way into having every Indian scanned, tagged and labelled. A timeline of the country’s chequered date with the unique identification project You’ve probably read the WhatsApp joke about a post-Aadhaar scenario in 2020 India. A man orders pizza over phone. He is asked for his Aadhaar...