-The Indian Express In January, Arvind Panagariya had raised the first red flag on the possibility of taxpayers being harassed post-demonetisation and had reportedly written to the Prime Minister’s Office. Under Arvind Panagariya, the Niti Aayog PILoted several reforms ideas in both economic and social spheres, but the sudden departure of its vice-chairman has put under the spotlight the numerous occasions when difference of opinions between the think-tank and other wings of...

-The Financial Express Pune: Farmer producer companies in Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana are considering the possibility of commencing trading in grapes, potato seeds and basmati rice soon. A 30-member team from farmer producer companies (FPCs) associated with the northern operations of the Vegetable Growers Association of India (VGAI) and the Haryana horticulture department was in Maharashtra to study the infrastructure of FPCs in the state and the establishment of logistics for...

-Livemint.com The Aadhaar project is a textbook example of how not to design and execute a public policy initiative in India When it was first launched in 2009, Aadhaar signalled a promise to repair the corroded plumbing of India’s leaky public delivery systems. The unique biometric identity would help reduce duplicate and ghost entries in the list of beneficiaries of government schemes, and pave the way for direct benefit transfers to them...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Food ministry is working on a PILot to emulate the direct cooking gas subsidy transfer scheme model for public distribution system (PDS) of subsidised foodgrains. The beneficiaries will get the subsidy amount in advance in their bank accounts and they will have to buy the foodgrains from any ration shop, which has got the electronic point of sale (e-PoS) devices. The food ministry recently sent three...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha on Friday passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill allowing teachers appointed on or before March 31, 2015 to acquire minimum qualifications within a period of four years from the date of commencement of the Act. This gives the 8.5 lakh unqualified teachers, appointed after implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) law, another chance to get recognized...