All 10 fingerprints, an iris scan and a photograph of the person will be used for unique identification (UID) of individuals, the cabinet committee on UID decided on Tuesday, giving its in-principle clearance to guidelines for setting up the UID database. In a billion-plus population, a mix of biometric and photographic record is considered necessary to ensure fidelity of information collected in the project. With UID intended to help identify...

There may be succour in store for the exploited lot of `domestic workers' with a key government panel recommending that `placement agencies', which work as mediators in employment of helps, should be regulated. It has also decided that government should ask states to declare minimum wages for these workers. The panel said that the Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1953, should regulate placement agencies. If this is implemented, the agencies...

The government will compile figures at the district and block levels to arrive at a more accurate identification of poor for better targeting of Welfare schemes. So far, the poor in India have only been counted at the national and state levels. The Planning Commission has commissioned a study which will come up with these relevant numbers soon. The poverty cut-offs (a minimum monthly expenditure below which people are considered...

The Union Women and Child Development Ministry will map the high-risk and vulnerable districts to strengthen nutrition surveillance. It will also set up a working group for surveillance in health and nutrition at the Central level under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). This follows a paper prepared by the Women and Child Development and Health and Family Welfare Ministries for addressing nutritional challenges...

A new study on nutritional challenges has painted a grim picture of the current Indian scenario where over 50% of child deaths are caused due to malnutrition. Concerned over the high number of child deaths, the ministry of women and child development (WCD) plans to strengthen nutritional surveillance by mapping undernourished endemic zones and identifying "high risk and vulnerable districts". The report recommends developing a nutrition surveillance system to identify...