Nandan Nilekani is leaving Infosys as its co-chairman to join the government. He has the task of handing out a unique identification card to every citizen of this country. It’s a simple enough task by itself; but made complex by a large population, spread across a vast geography and the failure of such schemes in the past. Nearly a decade ago, the election commission’s voter identity card programme is still to cover vast parts of the population. Mr Nilekani’s challenge will be to do much better.