-The Indian Express Mumbai: Admitting that charitable hospitals flout norms despite monitoring, the Maharashtra government will now set up and maintain an online real-time database in all such hospitals to make sure the indigent and economically backward citizens can avail of affordable medical services. Having issued a Government Resolution to this effect on October 22, the government will spend on setting up computer hardware and employ one 'Aarogya Mitra', under the Rajiv...

-Live Mint In the past year, ration cards are being replaced with smartcards that can track food doled out through the PDS system New Delhi: Mohanlal Kapoor, a street vendor in north India, holds a card entitling him to subsidized food for his wife and four children. To get supplies, the Kapoors must battle an estimated 15 million families in their state toting similar pieces of paper that they're not entitled...

-Down to Earth Is India ready to protect itself from the onslaught of food and nutrition industry? India is shouldering a huge burden of malnutrition-in the absence of government figures, a dipstick survey by non-profit HUNGaMA in 2012 suggests that 59 per cent of the country's children could have stunted growth and 42 per cent could be underweight. While the government is still struggling to tackle the problem, the food and nutrition...

-The Hindu Latehar: Last week, two 14-year-old adivasi girls, who had migrated from Khunti district to work in Delhi as domestic help, were found dead in mysterious circumstances, both within two days of each other. On April 19, Jyoti Mariyam Hora died soon after she was brought to the Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital in Delhi's Malviya Nagar. Two days later, Dayamani Guriya, who had studied with Jyoti till class VI and had...

-The Hindu     A computerised database of ration card holders and purchases is a safeguard against diversion of PDS supplies but the process can be disruptive for beneficiaries The government has initiated an interesting pilot for the Public Distribution System (PDS) in East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh. When cardholders go to buy their PDS rations, their ration card number and UID (Unique Identification) number are punched into an "e-Point of Sale" (ePOS) machine. If...