-The Hindu   Describing female foeticide as a grave challenge, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said information, education and communication (IEC) could play a role in building a positive environment for valuing the girl child, particularly at the grassroots level. He said the Centre had decided to provide funds to States for setting up dedicated cells to monitor the implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic...

The government of India's Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY)a¦ is now internationally recognised for its innovative approach to harnessing information technology to reach the poor, says the World Bank in the context of the smart card-based cashless health insurance scheme. The RSBY has now been picked up by UNDP as one of the 19 schemes worldwide for its publication, Sharing Innovative Experience: Social Protection Floor Success Stories. About 20 million...

Media Reports The UID Aadhaar project planning and system design shortcomings and security risks at the national (or macro) level have been discussed elsewhere.1 The present article views the Aadhaar project at the system operational level, with practical considerations based on observed and probable functioning at the service delivery end. Consider the following report in a local daily, The Mysore Bugle: Food riots: PDS outlet vandalised Mysore: August 2, 2015—The PDS outlet in Ashokpuram...

-The Business Standard   Several Indian states have deployed information technology (IT) to improve the operations of their public distribution system (PDS). Madhya Pradesh has gone the farthest in this regard by issuing ration cards to only those with unique identification (UID) numbers. The state is also using the services of an IT firm. Since an IT system takes some time to be put in place and then some more to get...

Drug prices have shot up phenomenally in India over the past decade and a half. A Planning Commission's expert group says there was nearly 40% rise in all drug prices between 1996 and 2006, thanks to the nation's pricedecontrol policies of the 1990s. Citing a study conducted in 2008, the Commission's high-level expert group (HLEG) on universal health coverage, headed by Dr K Srinath Reddy, says during the same period...