-Economic and Political Weekly A debate on the study "A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Aadhaar" conducted by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy which was discussed in the EPW of 2 February 2013. Sumathi Chandrashekaran, Shekhar H Kumar, Smriti Parsheera, Ila Patnaik, Madhavi Pundit, Suyash Rai, Ajay Shah A debate on the study “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Aadhaar” conducted by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy which was discussed in...

-Live Mint Ministry wants UIDAI to be held liable for fake transactions, but the latter says that’s outside its mandate The transformation of India’s subsidy system to one in which cash is paid directly to the intended beneficiary is faced with a situation in which none of the various government agencies involved is willing to assume responsibility in cases of fraud, according to two people familiar with the development. The programme, the pilot...

-Economic and Political Weekly A cost-benefi t analysis by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy of the benefits from Aadhaar integration with seven schemes throws up huge benefi ts that are based almost entirely on unrealistic assumptions. Further, the report does not take into account alternative technologies that could achieve the same or similar savings, possibly at lower cost. Reetika Khera (reetika.khera@gmail.com) is at the Institute of Economic Growth on...

-Pratirodh.com The streets of the obscure town of Pandharkawda in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra have come to life. Hundreds of villagers crowd them for the weekly haat to buy their supplies of vegetables, spices, pulses and tobacco, while farmers throng shops selling seeds, pesticides, manure and farm commodities. Dressed in bright cotton sarees, women haggle with vendors. Even doctors, especially dentists, are having a busy day with long queues of patients...

-The Hindustan Times Indians love slogans. So, since Independence, successive governments have offered catch lines to their electorates. Some slogans were inopportune because they were of dubious accuracy. Jawaharlal Nehru’s 1950s ‘Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai’ — Indians and Chinese are brothers — (even Nehru did not believe this), led to a battlefield defeat. The Congress’ 1975 Emergency-era ‘Indira is India and India is Indira’ and the BJP’s 2004 ‘India Shining’ were electoral disasters. Some...