Srinagar, June 29: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Monday said India was leading the world's major democracies with a transparent electoral process in which every stage of the exercise is audited by the political parties and candidates.

"We discussed the components of the world's most transparent electoral process --” preparation of the voter list, polling and counting. These are concurrently audited by all political parties and candidates," Kumar, who is on a three-day visit to Kashmir, told reporters here.
Earlier in the day, Kumar addressed a gathering of booth-level officers (BLOs) in Budgam district, about 12 km from Srinagar.
He said India currently holds the chair of International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), an intergovernmental organisation that supports sustainable democracy worldwide.
"Seeing this process of Indian elections, in 2026 Bharat is currently leading all the large democratic countries of the world, and is also the chairperson of International IDEA," he said.
The Chief Election Commissioner described BLOs as the pillars of democracy.
"Once again, through all of you, my greetings to all the voters of Jammu & Kashmir, and greetings to all BLOs, BLO supervisors, AEROs, EROs, and DEOs," he added.
Centre launches national drug registry to standardise medicine data
BK News Service
New Delhi, June 29: Union Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda on Monday launched the Drug Registry, a unified digital platform to standardise medicine-related information across India's healthcare system.
Developed under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), the registry will serve as a single source of verified drug information, enabling consistent identification, storage, exchange and use of medicine data across healthcare platforms.
The registry has been developed in collaboration with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) and the National Resource Centre for EHR Standards (NRCeS), Pune. It uses international standards, including SNOMED CT, to ensure interoperability across digital health systems.
It includes standardised codes for generic medicines, branded drugs and substances. At present, the registry contains more than 1.23 lakh branded drugs, over 10,000 generic drugs and more than 29,000 substances.
Users can search medicines by generic name, brand name, substance or manufacturer. The platform is designed to integrate with Hospital Management Information Systems (HMIS), e-prescription platforms, doctor-facing applications and other ABDM-compliant digital health solutions through open APIs.
The registry is one of the four core registries under ABDM, along with the ABHA Registry, Healthcare Professional Registry and Health Facility Registry.
At the event, Nadda also launched the Ayushman Sarathi PM-JAY WhatsApp chatbot, which enables beneficiaries to access PM-JAY services through WhatsApp, the Unified Health Interface (UHI) to connect patients and healthcare providers across digital platforms, eSushrut@Clinic, a government-backed Hospital Management Information System developed by C-DAC for small clinics, and Aarogya Setu 2.0, which has been redesigned as a Personal Health Record app and digital gateway for health services.