-PTI Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has said 'Aadhaar' numbers, the unique 12-digit identification numbers given to residents of India, would be used to provide different social pensions, MGNREGA wages to workers and scholarships to students. "The Aadhaar-enabled applications would be utilised immediately in some selected 50 districts of the country, where the enrolment covered over 70%," the Rural Development Minister told reporters here last night. Over 20 crore people in the country were...

Yet another case of judicial corruption was exposed last month when the Andhra Pradesh High Court suspended additional special judge for CBI cases T. Pattabhi Rama Rao following allegations of corruption. Charged on the basis of a complaint filed by the CBI, the special judge had allegedly taken a bribe of Rs 5 crore to grant bail to former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhana Reddy in the illegal mining case. The...

-The Telegraph The Jharkhand government is uneasy, a bit tense even, about tomorrow’s visit to Saranda by Union minister Jairam Ramesh who has time and again made public his displeasure at the slow implementation of his development initiative in the former Naxalite hub of West Singhbhum. In his latest missive, sent to chief minister Arjun Munda on June 18, the architect of the Saranda Development Plan highlighted a number of “worrying” issues,...

A school principal in Melur in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, is reported to have denied admission to two girls whose parents had married them off after they completed Class X ( The Hindu , June 23). Prima facie , it seems the principal is wrongly applying her authority. Also, in the broader social context, it seems strange and unacceptable that the benefits of education should be denied to a girl...

-The Hindustan Times The flood situation in Assam worsened on Thursday with new areas coming under water and the toll reaching 22. Altogether, 21 districts have been affected following the week-long incessant rains. The river has breached embankment at five places, affecting 1,744 villages across nine districts and 70,000 hectares of crop land. The situation in Kamrup, Nalbari and Bongaigaon in lower Assam worsened on Thursday, after the tributaries of Brahmaputra breached their...