For India's poorest, Aadhaar can be the difference between life and death

Prem Malhar says his 50-year-old father died of hunger a few months ago because he did not have the government’s Aadhaar identity card that would have given him access to subsidised food.

At least 14 people have died of starvation in Jharkhand, the state where the Malhars live, activists say. They say the deaths have occurred since authorities cancelled old handwritten government ration cards last year and replaced them with the biometric Aadhaar card to weed out bogus beneficiaries.

Taramani Sahu, an activist with the Right to Food Campaign, blamed the Jharkhand government for delays in issuing the Aadhaar cards