Latest news with #Taonga
Time of India
10 hours ago
- Health
- Time of India
Over 6k fake med claims made in 39 hospitals across UPunder Ayushman Bharat
1 2 Lucknow: An alleged scam of Rs 10 crore in fraudulent medical insurance claims under Ayushman Bharat and Mukhyamantri Jan Arogya schemes at several private hospitals of Uttar Pradesh has been busted. An FIR was registered at Hazratganj police station on Monday. BK Srivastava, the state nodal officer of the State Agency for Comprehensive Health and Integrated Services (SACHIS), filed the FIR alleging large-scale irregularities in the processing and approval of medical claims submitted by private hospitals empanelled under the two schemes. The FIR stated that between May 1 and May 22, 2025, a total of 6,239 claims from 39 private hospitals in UP were processed and paid through the centralised online system linked to the National Health Authority's digital portal. A routine audit raised concerns when an unusual volume of high-value claims was processed during odd hours, particularly late at night. Further analysis revealed that the login credentials of key officials, including Implementation Support Agency (ISA) staff, financial officers, and the CEO of SACHIS, were misused to approve these claims without proper scrutiny or authorisation. The fraudulent activity involved unauthorised access and digital manipulation of login IDs such as UP003507, UP008126, UP008171, UP008038, UP008039 (ISA users), UP001730, UP003881 (Finance/Accounts), and UP008296 (CEO-SACHIS). by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Najbardziej relaksująca gra roku 2025. Bez instalacji Taonga: Wyspa Farma Zagraj teraz Undo Srivastava said these IDs were used to process claims without any online recommendation from the actual users. ISA officials denied any involvement, saying that none of the disputed claims were routed or approved through their system. ACP Hazratganj Vikas Jaiswal said the FIR stated that the timestamps of the transactions indicated deliberate manipulation, as several claims were processed outside normal office hours, suggesting either an insider conspiracy or a highly sophisticated cyber breach. Under Ayushman Bharat scheme SOPs, hospital claims are first submitted on the portal after a beneficiary is treated. These claims are vetted by the ISA, medically audited, and financially verified at SACHIS before being forwarded to the CEO for final approval and payment via banks. However, the scam bypassed this entire chain of checks. The scam came to light when office-level reviews found disproportionate payments being made from the finance manager's login, which was not used by the designated officer at the time of the approvals. Investigations revealed that the login IDs were hacked or misused to clear claims for hospitals not eligible for such reimbursements or had exaggerated treatment data. Irregularities were noticed when payments appeared inflated compared to volume of patients reportedly treated under the scheme. Following internal review and verification from the ISA, it became evident that the online recommendations for claim settlements did not come from the actual users, suggesting a systemic breach. Further audits may reveal a larger figure. Sources said govt has formed an inquiry committee to assess internal lapses within SACHIS.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
India's plant-based protein market is heating up—But can it overcome these challenges?
The alternative protein sector in India must bridge the price gap with the traditional meat and dairy industry, while also addressing infrastructure gaps. This approach is crucial to attract budget-conscious consumers and build a sustainable market, say industry stakeholders and experts. This requires investing in efficient local raw material processing, robust supply chains, and scalable production to minimise disruptions and enhance competitiveness. With significant growth potential and low penetration, especially in urban areas, companies must adapt quickly to stay competitive and add stakeholders and experts. Scaling production is key Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Najbardziej relaksująca gra roku 2025. Bez instalacji Taonga: Wyspa Farma Zagraj teraz Undo Experts and stakeholders say the alternative protein sector needs large-scale plant-based protein production facilities, requiring substantial investment, to grow and remain competitive in both Indian and global markets. They agree that scaling production in the alternative protein sector requires significant investment. 'The challenges in India's cold storage infrastructure, like storage capacity, uneven distribution, high initial capex and energy consumption, pose scalability challenges to the smart protein value chain,' says Rajeev Nayar, Partner at KPMG in India. Live Events India's alternative protein market needs government support through regulations, financial incentives, and public-private partnerships to scale up, according to experts. To optimise costs, the industry can adopt closed processing, simplify equipment like bioreactors, and reduce media costs through value engineering, they say. There are over 100 start-ups innovating across plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cultivated proteins, spread across 23 Indian cities. India's smart protein market, currently valued at Rs 350 crore (nearly $42 million), is expected to reach $4.2 billion by 2030, according to a report by Deloitte & GFI India. Sneha Singh, MD of non-profit think tank The Good Food Institute (GFI), says that young start-ups in the alternative protein sector struggle to raise capital, underscoring the need for large food processing companies to get involved and support the industry's growth. Similarly, Nayar says that boosting productivity in both upstream processes (media optimisation, cell cultivation, and harvesting) and downstream processes (cutting, grinding, and packaging) can help lower costs. Raw material procurement: A challenge India's plant-based meat industry faces hurdles due to limited domestic cultivation of crops like peas, soy, and chickpeas, leading to heavy reliance on imported ingredients, according to experts. Smitha Devigere, Founder and CEO of Devigere Biosolutions, notes that despite India being a top pulse producer, it lacks innovation and large-scale production of value-added products like protein extraction. Consequently, the country imports around 90% of its alternative protein, mainly from China, Europe, and Western nations. 'Plant proteins are costly due to high import duties, transportation costs, and inherent taste and texture issues, such as a beany flavour and texture. This is ironic, given that India exports pulses as commodities but imports high-value protein extracts,' says Devigere. iStock India's plant-based meat industry faces hurdles due to limited domestic cultivation of crops like peas, soy, and chickpeas, leading to heavy reliance on imported ingredients, according to experts. 'Plant proteins require processing to match the texture and taste of animal-based proteins. To succeed, India needs innovation in two key areas: efficient protein extraction and developing animal-based alternatives using clean, sustainable, and cost-effective technologies. Industry partnerships with innovators are crucial to drive large-scale growth,' adds Devigere. High costs Smart protein products in India struggle with high costs compared to traditional meat and dairy, making it challenging in a price-sensitive market, says Singh. 'With reference to cultured meat, one of the biggest challenges is ramping up the production to an industrial scale at a cost comparable to the actual meat. One of the hurdles is to significantly bring down the cost of media. However, enough work is currently on the way to mitigate the price of media,' says Navneet Singh Deora, CTO, BlueTribe. 'Global companies are employing a range of approaches to minimise costs, including blending small amounts of cultivated meat or fat with plant-based ingredients, focusing on producing basic cell mass (undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells) rather than fully structured tissue, producing media components such as growth factors in-house, developing novel bioreactors, and exploring continuous or semi-continuous production processes. All these approaches need significant participation from government organisations and should be part of the strategic policy,' says Deora. Flavor plays a crucial role Flavour is also a key factor limiting the acceptability and marketability of plant-based meat alternatives. Plant proteins often have undesirable flavours, such as beany notes, bitterness, and astringency, which can hinder consumer appeal, experts say. Deora suggests a unified regulatory framework and public tastings can promote cultivated meat adoption. Countries like Singapore and the Netherlands have successfully implemented pre-approval tastings by gathering consumer feedback and building familiarity, which can inform regulatory clarity, he says. 'Currently the industry does adapt to flavour maskers or taste modulators which are derived via bio-fermentation. Alternatively, working with high-purity protein and using appropriate processing steps could help mitigate the rigt flavor in the final product,' adds Deora. Global ecosystem According to Nayar, plant-based meat alternatives in Western markets initially faced taste and pricing challenges. Successful market entry strategies included partnerships with restaurants and retailers, such as collaborations with quick-service restaurants in the US that supply burger patties. The US has been a leader in the technological development of alternative proteins such as plant-based meat (PBM) and cell-based meat (CBM) with growing market participation. 'The development of contemporary PBM products in the US has been driven by a combination of concerns about animal welfare, the environment, and human health. The evolution of PBM products based on soy, wheat, pea isolates, and lupin beans has been facilitated by more efficient raw materials, logistics, and retail, which has enabled scalability of processes and the development of more complex value chains,' says Deora. In 2021, US retail sales of plant-based meat (PBM) reached $1.4 billion, with a 74% growth rate over three years, signalling mainstream adoption, says Deora. However, despite this growth, the PBM industry's market share remains relatively small compared to the global animal protein market, adds Deora. 'India can be a global hub' Despite challenges like limited consumer awareness and acceptance, experts believe India's alternative protein start-ups have immense potential, and the country is well-positioned to become a global hub for smart protein innovation, driven by its growing economy, high-protein crop production, and cost advantages. The country can establish protein isolate production units, reduce imports, and potentially export to other countries, driven by lower manufacturing costs, affordable labour, and government incentives, they say. 'High cost can be tackled by using conventional sources of proteins from the food by-product. For example, effective inputs in terms of using cheaper food grade raw materials like by-products from the oil industry (Defatted soy flour/ Defatted Peanut flour) with the protein as high as 50% can further optimise the cost along with the use of functional ingredients and adequate processing aids,' says Deora. The experts say achieving price parity with traditional meat is crucial, and emerging alternative protein sources like fungi, potato by-products, seaweed, algae, and CO2-based protein production hold promise for future growth. 'To accelerate private financing towards smart proteins, particularly cultivated meat technologies, streamlining the process for international investors and introducing more flexibility in cross-border financing are crucial steps towards attracting substantial foreign investments. Infrastructure remains a significant bottleneck, with high costs associated with setting up specialised facilities, such as fermenters for cultivated meat,' says Singh. The experts suggest targeted government grants and incentives for private investors in alternative protein infrastructure can significantly reduce capital costs. Utilising shared facilities and existing infrastructure can also help startups optimise resources and scale up efficiently. Strategies like leveraging grants, angel investors, and marketing partnerships can provide the necessary capital and market exposure for growth, they say. 'India's ingredient manufacturers working with indigenous crops have the opportunity to plug into the global value chain and offer diversified inputs for plant-based foods,' says Singh.
NZ Herald
29-04-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
Reward for revealing netball's forgotten past
Taonga like the British Metropolitan Police bobby's whistle, gifted to Myrtle Muir – the first Silver Ferns coach and a woman who played a lead role in establishing Netball New Zealand a century ago. Or the 1932 film reel shot at the national netball tournament, concealed inside a metal canister and smelling like vinegar when it was discovered in the garage of a famous Silver Fern. And the real breakthrough: when Henley discovered netball – then called basketball – was first played on New Zealand soil in 1898, eight years earlier than previously believed. And even more remarkably, it was introduced by a pioneering young female teacher in Whanganui – not the male Presbyterian minister credited in history books. Even so, it took Henley two years to learn the innovative teacher Miss Knapp's first name. 'It's a bit like detective work, I suppose,' says Henley, 73, who was a lecturer in media and communication at the University of Auckland until the end of last year. 'A little fuzzy thread sticks out and you give it a wee pull, and sometimes you can't work out where it comes from, and other times it leads to another clue, another link. The more you pull out, the more of a picture you start to get of the sport. 'I look at all these plastic boxes and think there are so many stories in there, of so many women's lives. And all of this could have been turfed out. It just can't be lost.' As Netball New Zealand's centenary year draws to a close in May, Henley's decades-long commitment to chronicling and preserving the sport's history – all undertaken voluntarily – has been honoured with a Netball New Zealand Service Award. 'Margaret has played a vital role in ensuring that the legacy of netball is carefully documented and able to be shared with future generations,' her citation reads. Henley was a driving force in creating the recent exhibition Our Game: A Century of Netball in Aotearoa New Zealand at Auckland Museum, which has now been dismantled, and its treasures – like Dame Lois Muir's 1963 Silver Ferns tracksuit and the minute book from the first meeting of the sport's national body in 1924 – have been returned to storage. Henley is uncertain what will happen to the artefacts and footage she and Miller are now archiving. Sports like rugby and cricket have national museums, but netball would need financial help and a permanent space to do the same. For now, they'll continue to sift through the plastic bins overflowing with memories, deciding between them what's kept and what's discarded. Henley has been able to trace the origins of netball in Aotearoa back to Whanganui Girls College, where in 1898 (when it was Wanganui Girls College), a young teacher introduced the new game to her students, with day girls playing boarders. Most historians have recorded that it was the Reverend J.C. Jamieson who brought a game he saw in Australia to Auckland in 1906, and teams were formed from the YMCA and Presbyterian bible classes. But Henley's sleuthing found evidence in parliamentary documents and local newspapers that it was the Wanganui teacher Jessie Knapp who – after most likely reading reports in papers and gazettes of the new sport sweeping America called basketball – saw how it could be adapted for girls in her school. 'A school inspector came to the school, saw four basketball teams playing and thought it was jolly good; wrote it up, and it was recorded in the Journals of the House of Representatives,' Henley says. 'I worked out the teacher who introduced the game was a Miss Knapp, but it took me nearly two years to discover her first name.' Henley then unravelled the intriguing back story of Jessie Knapp. She was born in the same small Nelson town of Spring Grove – and in the same year – as 'the father of nuclear physics', Sir Ernest Rutherford. Knapp shared a unique connection with the world-renowned scientist: both earned scholarships to attend Nelson Boys' and Girls' Colleges, where they excelled academically. In an era when most girls left school around the age of 14 to work before marriage, Knapp stayed on to be mentored by headmistress Kate Edger, the first Kiwi woman to obtain a university degree. In 1890, at the age of 19, Knapp completed a Bachelor of Arts degree. 'I was able to contact her relatives in Nelson, who were so proud that she was an early, highly educated woman, but they didn't know what she'd achieved in the history of netball,' Henley says. She's also been able to trace exactly where basketball was first played in Auckland. There's a grainy black-and-white photo taken around 1906, of the A and B teams of St Luke's Presbyterian Church, dressed in their uniforms of white blouses and long black woollen skirts, with wicker baskets strung between tree trunks as goals. She's located the original 'court', a paddock on the Hood farm, off Armadale Road in Remuera – after finding an ad from Mrs Hood looking for domestic help. Five years ago, Henley and Miller also uncovered the first name of the first New Zealand coach, Mrs H.D. Muir – otherwise known as Myrtle. They also found her grandfather was a Cantonese gold digger, who came to Otago during the gold rush era and lived in poverty in a Chinese camp. Myrtle Muir was instrumental is establishing the New Zealand Basketball Association (now Netball New Zealand) in 1924, and coached the original 1938 Silver Ferns. On display at the Auckland Museum was an ACME Metropolitan Police whistle, gifted to Muir (also an umpire), likely by the Victoria Basketball Association in Australia in 1946. Two years later, the Australian national team toured New Zealand for the first time, convincingly winning all three tests. It was always going to be lopsided: a nine-a-side version of the game was still being played in New Zealand (until 1959), while the Australians played the now universal seven-a-side. Henley and Miller drove north to Waipu to collect the whistle from Muir's granddaughter, who 'absolutely treasured it'. Henley's passion for netball history came to the fore, she says, when she was researching for her doctorate into the evolution of broadcast images of netball as a women-only sport. 'I decided I had to do a chapter on the history of the sport and look at how it worked back then with major forms of media,' she says. 'But where I fell deeply in love with it was through my obsession with cinema newsreels. Before the 1960s, the only way women in New Zealand could see moving images of women playing sport was in the cinema. And there were only a few locally produced cinema newsreels – once or twice a year, little vignettes of women playing basketball. I tracked down every piece of cinema newsreel that's been preserved.' But Henley was baffled by the whereabouts of a 25-minute film, shot at the 1932 national netball tournament in Invercargill. For 20 years, it was played in netball associations throughout the country, travelling with a film projector, so women and girls – particularly in smaller towns –could see the top level of the game being played. 'I kept saying to everyone I met, there's this film out there, and I can't believe it's been lost,' she says. Henley and Miller finally tracked down the 16mm film in the garage of past Silver Ferns coach Yvonne Willering, inside a box of memorabilia given to her by Dame Lois Muir. 'After I had a little cry, Todd told me it smelled of vinegar,' Henley says, a sign that the acetate film base was degrading and releasing acetic acid. A film preservationist was able to salvage all but the first 10 seconds of film and digitise it. Henley would have been too young to have seen the film as a child. Growing up in Wellington, she'd wanted to play netball from the age of 8, but there wasn't a team at her school. 'So my mother started me a netball team with other girls from the Anglican church,' she says. 'We'd go to the Hataitai courts every Saturday but we were so small and no one knew what they were doing, we would always get beaten.' By 12, she was playing senior netball for Onslow. 'It was a rich melting pot – we played against the typing pool and women who had rollers in their hair and freshly painted nails ready for Saturday night. You didn't dare knock their rollers out,' Henley laughs. 'When I became an academic, I found there were men writing about netball, about the hyper-femininity and how it was so controlled, and that just sent me into orbit. There was nothing hyper-feminine about the way we played. It's where I learned to stand up for myself. And I loved it. 'They didn't understand how liberating it was for us to play. And the whole socialisation – all these women who ran it, organised it and umpired us, told us off and fed us. Everything was women's labour for the interests and wellbeing of women and young girls. You were part of this living machine at every netball court all around New Zealand for decades and decades.' The next 'big, crucial push' in Henley and Miller's project is to digitise the hundreds of VHS tapes of New Zealand netball footage from the 1980s and 1990s. She still has a VHS player at home so she can watch a lot of the tapes. 'Our job is to identify and preserve it, but also to recognise what it represents – a section of New Zealand society that evolved and built its own processes, protocols and its own cultural heritage. It looked after itself,' Henley says. 'The first phase is to identify, sort, collate and catalogue. Once that happens, it's harder to ignore, dismiss or lose. Then it's getting it digitised and then sharing it, getting awareness of it. That's very important for me, that would be the most rewarding goal.' Although she's no longer teaching, Henley is still a researcher, working with Professor Toni Bruce on their three-year Marsden-funded project, titled Netball's enduring role in the intergenerational health and wellbeing of Aotearoa women. 'There are these whole areas of women's social history that are still hugely under-researched, under-published, under-resourced and under-preserved. They're just not saved,' Henley says. 'Ultimately, it belongs to the generations of women in New Zealand, and the dream is to be able to share it with them, make it easily accessible for them, in a way that they will get absolute joy from discovering their mothers, their aunties and their grandparents, who expressed themselves through sport.' Henley loves working with Australian-born Miller: 'We have shared heritage, my father was Australian,' she says, 'and there are many points of sympatico. Our relationship is very rewarding and irreverent.' The feeling is mutual. Miller – who received a World Netball Service Award in 2023 for his 30-year involvement in the sport – says working with Henley is a privilege, as someone he respects greatly. 'Her depth of knowledge and care for our sport to uncover and tell the history is unmatched,' he says. 'It's also incredible to have someone to call when you uncover a piece of information or image you've never see before – and she's as excited as I am.'
