-The Hindu Any political benefit the Congress hopes to reap in 2014 will come at the cost of reducing the effectiveness of social welfare schemes In getting its ministers to endorse the shift to cash transfers from the AICC office in New Delhi, the Congress has highlighted the political nature of the move. The party clearly expects cash transfers to play the same role for it in 2014 that the National Rural...

-The Business Standard UID can shift focus from the government's functioning to the intended beneficiaries and ease of access The central government is seriously thinking of putting in place a technology-based platform to hand over subsidies directly into the hands of their intended beneficiaries. A number of pilots are under way for handing over, for example, kerosene subsidies for household consumption. While this is largely a central government initiative, state governments...

-NDTV Over-ruling the objections of India's defence forces, the government has said that 4500 canteens in the Navy, Air Force and Army will be reviewed by the national auditor CAG. The canteen's run by the armed forces qualify as the biggest retail chain of the country which serve all serving and retired personnel of the three services. At the top of the chain are the 34 outlet of the Canteen and Stores...

-ANI The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched its 'public data portal' for the Aadhaar project in line with the national data sharing and accessibility policy (NSDAP) 2012. The portal will enable the public to access several anonymised datasets generated in the UIDAI ecosystem. The public data portal is in consonance with the larger vision of the Government of India to make data available through data.gov.in. The UIDAI has also been...

42 families from Birpur village of Satna district in northern Madhya Pradesh are on a protest since the beginning of the month, to draw attention to the siphoning of their PDS foodgrain. Additionally, through an online petition put by a local activist group, the families are demanding that K.K. Khare, Satna’s District Collector use his powers to crack down on the months-long corruption and resume their supply of ration entitlements....