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Objective: In India, about one third of tuberculosis (TB) patients diagnosed at tertiary hospitals are missed during a referral to peripheral health institutes for treatment. To address this, we assessed whether mobile voice call reminders to TB patients after diagnosis at a tertiary hospital decrease the proportion of "pretreatment loss to follow-up" (PTLFU), compared with the conventional paper-based referral. Design: A two-group parallel-arm randomized controlled trial was conducted. Setting: The study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital at Puducherry, South India. Participants: All newly diagnosed TB patients, both pulmonary and extrapulmonary, who were referred for treatment from the selected tertiary care hospital and possessed a mobile phone were eligible to participate. The participants were enrolled between March 2015 and June 2016 and were randomized to study groups using the block randomization with allocation concealment. Intervention: The participants in the intervention arm received standardized mobile voice calls reminding them to register for anti-TB treatment on the second and seventh day after referral in addition to the conventional paper-based referral received by the control group. Primary outcomes: Patients not started on anti-TB treatment within 14 days of referral were considered as PTLFU. The outcome of PTLFU was ascertained through phone calls made on the 14th day after referral. The intention-to-treat analysis was used, and the proportion of PTLFU in the study groups and the risk difference with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. Results: Of the 393 patients assessed for eligibility, 310 were randomized to the intervention (n = 155) and control (n = 155) arms. In the intervention arm, 14 (9%) out of 155 were PTLFU compared with 28 (18%) of the 155 patients in the control arm. The absolute risk difference was 9% (95% CI [1.5, 16.6], P = 0.01). Conclusion: Mobile voice call reminder to patients is a feasible intervention and can reduce PTLFU among referred TB patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New and emerging technologies have always been playing the vital role in shaping the different services of libraries. These technologies not only help the users to quick, quality and efficient services but also provide a chance to library and information professionals to think outside the box to make their services effective and responsive. Top trends will be familiar to some readers who will hopefully learn of new equipment to expand their knowledge. Other readers will be made aware of trends that are outside of their experience. This is the nature of trends in our current technological and educational environments. The change is constant, but it affects different libraries at different level. With the arrival of affordable smart mobile phones, libraries all over the world have been trying to utilise them for the betterment of their services. QR code is one of the technologies which can be used with smart phones. In India the use of QR Code and smart phones though started late but in these days emerging as basic element of their day to day life and accelerating technology adoption. In this paper author has discussed and highlighted on QR codes and their use in library. It discusses on how the QR Code technology can enhance the library services with Quick and Quality as prime role. This paper is limited to the library based use and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty affects many people, but the ramifications and impacts affect all aspects of society. Information about the incidence of poverty is therefore an important parameter of the population for policy analysis and decision making. In order to provide specific, targeted solutions when addressing poverty disadvantage small area statistics are needed. Surveys are typically designed and planned to produce reliable estimates of population characteristics of interest mainly at higher geographic area such as national and state level. Sample sizes are usually not large enough to provide reliable estimates for disaggregated analysis. In many instances estimates are required for areas of the population for which the survey providing the data was unplanned. Then, for areas with small sample sizes, direct survey estimation of population characteristics based only on the data available from the particular area tends to be unreliable. This paper describes an application of small area estimation (SAE) approach to improve the precision of estimates of poverty incidence at district level in the State of Bihar in India by linking data from the Household Consumer Expenditure Survey 2011–12 of NSSO and the Population Census 2011. The results show that the district level estimates generated by SAE method are more precise and representative. In contrast, the direct survey estimates based on survey data alone are less stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth in India's mobile telephony during the last decade coincided with a robust growth in its trade with China. A variety of imported equipment from China played a critical role in augmenting the use of mobile phones and expansion of networks in India. This paper studies the trends of these imports and examines the reasons for their penetrating deep into the Indian market. It argues that Chinese imports bridged a serious supply-side deficiency in India's telecom sector: the absence of a modern indigenous equipment manufacturing industry. Pointing out that development of the latter has been stunted due to low R&D, limited innovations, lack of access to finance, and liberal access to imports, the paper argues that Chinese imports are likely to continue until these conditions prevail, notwithstanding security concerns over such imports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telecommunications has been one of the success stories of economic reforms in India. From a teledensity of 2 percent in the not too distant past the sector has grown to a point where the teledensity exceeds 60 percent. The Indian cellular market is marked by strong competition, a large number of operators and some of the cheapest tariffs in the world. The sector experiences growth rates in excess of 80 percent in terms of the number of subscribers. However, all is not well in this sector. There have been a number of upheavals in the past and the latest one involves alleged favouritism in allocating spectrum. This paper analyzes the state of competition in the cellular mobile industry in India. Standard measures of competition such as HHI and concentration ratios are used as well as market share, revenues, access to funds and profits. We also look at the degree of rivalry in the industry through changes in rankings in market share. We provide a brief discussion of the major developments in telecommunications and cellular mobile in particular after the introduction of reforms. Effects of policy making by different institutions within India are discussed in relation to their effect on competition and market development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]