Tuesday, February 26, 2013

INDIA - National IDs to Greatly Improve Serving the Poor?

"India Organizes One of Largest Citizen Registration Drives Ever to Issue IDs" PBS Newshour 2/25/2013

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  .....to one of the largest registration drives of all time.  It's taking place in India, where authorities are mounting an effort to give every resident an official biometric identification card and number.

Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro filed this story as part of our Agents for Change series.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (Newshour):  Across India, in community centers and schools like this one in New Delhi, people line up for hours.  Patience, like application forms they seek, is often in short supply.  It seems like a big deal over a rather mundane prize: a new government-issued I.D.  But the man behind it all calls this the largest social inclusion project in history.

NANDAN NILEKANI, Retired Software Billionaire:  We still have a large number of residents of India who don't have a birth certificate or any other form of official I.D.  And in the old days, when they lived their entire life in a single village, it maybe didn't matter, but now, with the highly mobile and aspirational society, you need some kind of an I.D.

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