-The Times of India CHENNAI: At a time when the Centre is planning to link Aadhaar for government schemes and a large number of people are lining up for enrolment, an RTI application has revealed that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has identified more than 25,000 duplicate Aadhaar numbers in the country till August. Vinod Ranganathan of onlineRTI.com, who filed the application, said he had sought state-wise number of dubious/fake...

-TheWire.in New Delhi: Despite five Supreme Court orders since September 2013 stating that the Aadhaar card cannot be a mandatory requirement for access to government services or subsidies, the reality on the ground continues to remain very different. The point was underlined at a press conference in Delhi yesterday where, besides lawyers and experts, a resident of Yamuna Khadar, Delhi described how he was denied emergency treatment in two public hospitals...

-Hindustan Times Millions of domestic migrants in India may soon get to vote in elections in their native areas without leaving their places of employment if a government proposal to extend postal ballot facilities to them is successful. Sources said a committee of ministers has been asked to examine the possibility of allowing the choice of postal ballots — both electronically and through proxy voters — to domestic migrant labourers and workers,...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...

-The Indian Express The SC directive that Aadhaar can’t be made mandatory for any service — which the government can’t oppose until Aadhaar gets legal validity — has complicated the issue. On January 1, 2013, the Congress-led UPA government launched the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme, centred around the Aadhaar project begun a few years earlier. Teething troubles and implementation bottlenecks followed, the interest of the outgoing dispensation waned, and both Aadhaar...