The Christian Science Monitor

Hard drives make inroads into rural India


Molly Ninan is about the last person on earth you'd expect to have a handheld computer. A field nurse in this rural Indian village, she sets out on foot every day to monitor the basic medical needs of roughly 7,000 residents of an area rife with poverty and illiteracy. But in this hamlet 25 miles south of New Delhi, Ms. Ninan is using state-of-the-art technology to track patient medical histories, immunization and natal-care needs, and education and literacy levels. As she does, she joins a major government undertaking to develop useful technologies for common people in India's countryside which could serve as models for the whole developing world.