India's new identity card: Peering into their murky world

Jul 2nd 2009 | DELHI From The Economist print edition India hires a famous entrepreneur to shine a light on its invisible masses FOR Chanda, a middle-aged mother of two, moving to Delhi last year involved a trade-off. It brought her employment on the capital’s roads, for which she earns 2,000 rupees ($41) a month; in her village in Madhya Pradesh (MP) she could find no work at all. But Chanda and her family lost the state benefits—cut-price wheat, rice and cooking-oil—they had been receiving because, though they are still eligible to receive alms, the BPL (“below-poverty line”) card with which she claimed for them in MP is not recognised in Delhi. Nor is her voter-registration card, which allows her to vote only in her native village. Though all-too apparent, squatting under plastic sheeting on a Delhi pavement, she and her... [read full story]                    

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