With new hands aboard the National Advisory Council (NAC), the UPA government has sought to bolster its aam aadmi image and fast-track the social agenda of the Congress party, which some believe is beginning to languish in recent months.
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Given the council's pre-eminence in Sonia Gandhi's scheme of things, the run-up to the announcement of new members saw a lot of people in Dilli and some outside the capital lobbying hard to get a foot in. By most accounts, those who tried too hard ufffd and indeed some with very formidable reputations ufffd have been left out.
In its second coming, the new council is an older but wiser group of key civic society leaders and eminent ex-bureaucrats who will hopefully vigorously pursue the social development agenda.
Unique or questionable?
Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identity Authority of India (UID), has been painstakingly trying to dispel fears by pointing out the numerous and significant benefits of the UID scheme. The project is now well on track, with the first batch of UID cards expected to be issued between August 2010 and February 2011.
But now, there is a strange twist to the UID saga, following the government's approval for collection of biometric information of individuals recently.
Apparently, the biometric information uploaded in the card will have to be renewed and updated regularly. While children may have to renew their biometric information every five years, adults will have to do so every 10 years. The question naturally arises: What's permanent or one-time about the unique identity programme, if the data will need to be updated at regular intervals? Will it become a recurring nightmare for those who most desperately need it?
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