PDS is getting computerised, but documents still come in between the needy and food security The Delhi government’s Food and Supplies Department is computerising its database to ensure ration card holders get their entitlements without fail. But it does not have a clue as to how the needy can get ration cards under the Public Distribution System (PDS). Or, it has not used any technology to reach the needy. Getting a...

-Rediff.com    In this ongoing series we bring you 30 stories of struggle, survival and success to inspire you. This son of a rickshaw puller, who graduated in Mathematics chose entirely new subjects in Civils because he could not afford coaching. Here is his story On the pot-holed lanes of India's holy city Varanasi, Narayan Jaiswal used to pedal his rickety rickshaw to make a living and send his children to school in nearby...

Each time 25 year old Salma takes her one year old son Zubair to the Batla Clinic (a private clinic in Delhi) for a shot of the DPT, the cost of transportation and the vaccine adds up to approximately Rs.500.   When it is time for Zubair to take the next immunization dose, Salma may find that the expenses have entirely spiraled out of her reach. New vaccines and expensive brands of baby...

Mohammad Aamir had just turned 18, when one February day in 1998, he was ambushed by a police van. A month later, he found himself thrown against the cold, forbidding walls of a prison cell in the capital's Tihar jail. The charges were murder, terrorism and waging war against the nation. Aamir, released in January this year after 14 years, was named the main accused in 20 low-intensity bomb blasts executed...

-The Indian Express Inside a nondescript building in the eastern part of Bangalore stands a server farm, a cluster of computers. It is a building without a sign and visitors are strictly forbidden. In this building sits the data centre of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Location of the centre: “somewhere in Whitefield suburbs”, is all UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani would tell this newspaper. The centre forms the back support of...