The target here is the disastrously corrupt Public Distribution System, a $15 billion food subsidy program frozen in a pre-digital world, where bound journals hold falsified records scrawled in handwriting so illegible one reformer lamented “even God could not read it.”

In just the initial stages of the pilot program in the state of Orissa, 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from New Delhi, officials have already saved millions of dollars and appear to be getting food to villagers barely clinging to this side of starvation. The once rare sight of women walking home with sacks of rice on their head on ration days is now routine. The once routine sight of children with bellies distended from hunger is now rare.

The early success has inspired a cascade of new ideas for using technology to seal yet more of the program’s enormous leaks — “an attempt to make the system foolproof,” said Nitin Jawale, the chief administrator of the Rayagada district.

Just as the quandary of how to lay telephone lines to remote outposts disappeared with the arrival of cheap cellphones, Indian officials are hoping new technologies — some yet to be discovered — will tackle some of the country’s most intractable problems: corruption, collapsing health and education systems, a dearth of opportunity for the poor.

“We see innovation as truly a game-changer, to move from incremental change to radical change,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said last year in announcing plans for a $1 billion venture capital fund to seed revolutionary new technologies.

The government is setting up innovation bodies in every state and has approved plans to bring broadband Internet to India’s 250,000 villages.

It is also recording retina scans, fingerprints and photographs of all 1.2 billion Indians. The monumental endeavor to give everyone an identity record and number for the first time worries privacy experts but has sent reformers into a brainstorming frenzy over ideas for using the new database.

“There is great opportunity over the next decade to redesign the nation,” said Sam Pitroda, head of the government’s National Innovation Council.

For a country repeatedly jolted by screaming corruption scandals, the fraud and theft tainting the Public Distribution System is the ever-present white noise in the background, losing an estimated 58 percent of its subsidized grain, sugar and kerosene to so-called “leakages” — the scams that infest every part of the system.

Ration shop workers will claim the month’s shipment never arrived, then sell it on the open market at as much as 10 times the subsidized price. They’ll give confused and poorly educated recipients less than their full entitlement or substitute lower quality grain.

Since beneficiaries are registered at specific shops, they are subservient to the shopkeeper. Even the more honest workers sell off whatever rations are left at the end of the month. Or the grain may be diverted to the markets by the truckload before even reaching the shops.

Then, there are ghost ration cards given out under fake names, shadow cards in the hands of people other than the intended beneficiaries, and duplicate cards held by families registered at more than one shop. Sometimes, village thugs hold the cards as collateral for loan sharks, or collect the food themselves, distributing aid to the rightful recipients at their whim.

The system is meant to serve 400 million people, yet more than 250 million Indians are undernourished and 43 percent of children under 5 are stunted.

The program’s failure is a symptom of the government dysfunction that has disillusioned many who were left out of India’s economic growth and driven some to join the Maoists, branded the country’s top internal security threat.

Sukhbasi Mandani, a bone-thin widow who guesses she’s about 50, says her life hangs on the 280 rupees ($5.60) she earned last month, the food she forages from the hills and whatever part of her 30-kilogram (66-pound) rice ration she manages to get. Without that, she said, “I would have no food at all.”

The food program has its roots in a rationing system which was created in Bombay by India’s British colonial rulers in 1939 and quickly spread nationwide as a weapon against famine.

While it has become a national embarrassment, it is considered irreplaceable for what food it does manage to deliver. As lawmakers debate Right to Food legislation that would expand the program, government officials, under orders from the Supreme Court, have started a series of reform experiments across the country.

Rayagada, where nearly every family qualifies for some sort of food aid, was an ideal location for a pilot project by the government and the U.N. World Food Program.

Despite the risk of Maoist kidnapping, teams were sent into villages with fingerprint scanners and digital cameras to reregister everyone enrolled in the program, record their biometric data and create a database.

In Rayagada, the district’s main town, only 13,000 of the 23,000 enrolled families showed up, said Himanshu Bal, a World Food Program official. The others were either shadow cards or fakes. Clerks scouring the photos and fingerprints dropped thousands who tried to enroll twice using names spelled slightly differently.

The 210,000 families across the entire district who previously had been registered — and who had been recorded as taking food every month — fell to 180,000. The $1 million invested in the pilot program saved the government $4 million a year, Bal said.

The remaining recipients were given plastic or laminated cards, some with microchips, some with barcodes, to replace tattered, handwritten ration books.

At a store in Rayagada, under a creaking fan, a woman named Chandramma in a ragged pink sari and a necklace adorned with safety pins slid her microchip-embedded card into a device and put her thumb on its glass fingerprint scanner. The shopkeeper used a stylus on the touch-screen to register her rice order.

She paid 2 rupees a kilogram (about 2 cents a pound) as two barefoot men dumped rice on a digital scale with a tall display, easily visible to a customer.

Periodically, the machine uploads the day’s data to a central server, ensuring that only the honestly distributed grain would be replenished the next month.

Chandramma had at first been wary of the technology. “I am an illiterate lady, I didn’t trust whether this would work or not,” she said. But officials patiently explained it, and, more important, she is getting her rice every month.

“At least we now know whoever should be getting (food) is getting it,” said Orissa Food Secretary Madhu Sudan Padhy. “Without technology, how do we really keep track.”

Other subsidies also need reform, such as those on kerosene, so cheap that many run their motorbikes on it, according to Jawale. Its smell pervades the streets of Rayagada.

Nandan Nilekani, the former head of outsourcing giant Infosys, heads the giant identification project as well as a panel tasked with fixing the ration system. He believes the reforms can go further.

Once everyone has an ID number, they won’t need ration cards. Their information, stored on secure servers, can be verified by a cell phone hooked up to a retina- or fingerprint-scanner, he said. People could then get their rice at any ration shop, rewarding honest ones with more customers and driving the crooks out of business.

“The moment I can make my entitlement portable … the bargaining power shifts to the beneficiary,” Nilekani said.

That plan would face the same major hurdle that the pilot project does: the lack of electricity in rural areas makes the card readers unusable.

Reformers, excited by their initial success, say technology can solve that and other issues too. Shops without electricity might get solar panels, said Bal of the WFP.

They could install electronic scales that only print a receipt when the full amount is measured, he said.

The government also wants to put GPS trackers on delivery trucks and send text messages to recipients to ensure the food reaches them, said Padhy, the food secretary.

Success could inspire others across the country.

Because if technology can fix the Public Distribution System, anything is possible.

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Follow Ravi Nessman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ravinessman

Cluster munitions are packed with small “bomblets” that scatter indiscriminately and often harm civilians. Those that fail to detonate often kill civilians long after fighting ends.

They are banned under an international treaty adopted by more than 60 nations that took effect in August 2010, after the Sri Lankan war. The nations that haven’t adopted the treaty include Sri Lanka, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and the U.S., which says the bombs are a valid weapon of war when used properly.

The Associated Press obtained a copy Thursday of an email written by a U.N. land mine expert that said unexploded cluster bomblets were discovered in the Puthukudiyiruppu area of northern Sri Lanka, where a boy was killed last month and his sister injured as they tried to pry apart an explosive device they had found to sell for scrap metal.

The email was written by Allan Poston, the technical adviser for the U.N. Development Program’s mine action group in Sri Lanka.

“After reviewing additional photographs from the investigation teams, I have determined that there are cluster sub-munitions in the area where the children were collecting scrap metal and in the house where the accident occurred. This is the first time that there has been confirmed unexploded sub-munitions found in Sri Lanka,” the email said.

During the final weeks of the war, tens of thousands of civilians and Tamil Tiger rebel fighters were trapped in a tiny section of Puthukudiyiruppu as attacking government forces closed in on them.

Lakshman Hulugalla, a Sri Lankan government spokesman on security matters, said the military had not used cluster munitions in the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“We are denying that information,” he said.

The U.N. did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment.

Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka project director for the International Crisis Group, said the revelation “makes more clear than ever the need for a thorough and independent investigation of alleged violations of the laws of war by both the government and the LTTE, which only an international body can provide.”

Poston’s email, dated Tuesday, said mine clearers in Sri Lanka had not been prepared to deal with the bomblets, and are now relying on the experience of deminers who had worked in Lebanon, where Israel used cluster munitions in its 2006 war.

One deminer with experience in Lebanon was asked to clear the area and train other teams in how to handle the bomblets, according to the email. The local mine clearing office is adopting the Lebanon standards, and UNICEF was informed of the need to educate the local population about the dangers of the unexploded munitions, it said.

The army’s demining unit also was informed of the discovery, the email said.

“Cluster sub-munitions are extremely dangerous items of (unexploded ordnance) and can explode with the slightest movement or touch,” the email warned.

U.N. officials first reported the use of cluster munitions in the conflict zone in February 2009, saying they appeared to hit in an area around a hospital that was pounded by artillery fire for more than 16 hours. The government denied possessing the weapons and the U.N. said it accepted that denial.

A report last year by a U.N. panel of experts found credible allegations of war crimes by both Sri Lankan government forces and the rebels. The experts said there were unconfirmed reports the army had used cluster bombs against civilians in a No Fire Zone the government had set up.

Witnesses reported hearing large explosions followed by multiple small explosions that would be consistent with such munitions. The expert panel said some injuries were also consistent with cluster munitions, and called for further investigation of the issue.

A New York-based human rights group said it would have been disastrous to use such weapons among the hundreds of thousands of civilians crowded into the Sri Lankan war zone.

“If there is evidence that cluster weapons were used, it would show yet again, the government’s constant attempts at deception and underscore our demand that there should be an independent international investigation into all allegations of laws-of-war violations,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch.

The government has been under growing pressure to investigate possible war crimes, culminating last month in a resolution passed by the U.N. Human Rights Council urging a probe into allegations of summary executions, kidnappings and other abuses.

The war pitted ethnic Tamil rebels fighting for an independent state in northern Sri Lanka against a government dominated by the Sinhalese majority, which has marginalized minority Tamils for decades. The U.N. panel report said tens of thousands of civilians may have been killed in just the last few months of the war in the Indian Ocean island nation.

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Follow Ravi Nessman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ravinessman

“The nation stands tall today,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony said, according to the Press Trust of India.

The test came just days after North Korea’s own failed rocket launch, but sparked none of the same global condemnation that greeted that test.

Video released by the government showed the Agni-V taking off from a small launcher on what appeared to be railroad tracks at 8:07 a.m. from Wheeler Island off India’s east coast. It rose on a pillar of flame, trailing billows of smoke behind, before arcing through the sky.

The missile hit an altitude of more than 600 kilometers (370 miles), its three stages worked properly and its payload was deployed as planned, the head of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization, Vijay Saraswat, told Times Now news channel.

“India has emerged from this launch as a major missile power,” he said.

The window for the launch opened Wednesday night, but the test had to be postponed because of weather conditions.

Avinash Chandra, mission director for the test, said that when the launch took place Thursday morning the missile performed as planned.

“We have achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve in this mission,” he told Times Now.

The Chinese government did not immediately comment on the missile launch. State-owned China Central Television called the test “a historic moment for India and it shows that India has joined the club of the countries that own ballistic missiles.”

The state broadcaster then enumerated some of the missile’s shortcomings, from a problem with guidance systems to its 50-ton-plus weight, which it said would require it to be fired from fixed, not mobile positions and thus make it more vulnerable to attack.

“It does not pose a threat in reality,” CCTV said.

The Agni-V is a solid-fuel, three-stage missile designed to carry a 1.5-ton nuclear warhead. It stands 17.5 meters (57 feet) tall and was built almost completely with Indian-made technology at a reported cost of 25 billion rupees ($486 million). It can be moved across the country by road or rail and can be used to carry multiple warheads or to launch satellites into orbit.

The missile will need four or five more trials before it can be inducted into India’s arsenal at some point in 2014 or 2015, Indian officials said.

China is far ahead of India in the missile race, with intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching anywhere in India. Currently, the longest-range Indian missile, the Agni-III, has a range of 3,500 kilometers (2,100 miles) and falls short of many major Chinese cities.

India hailed Thursday’s test as a major step in its fight to be seen as a world power.

“India has today become a nation with the capability to develop, produce, build long-range ballistic missiles and today we are among the six countries who have this capability,” Saraswat said.

Analysts say France, Russia, China and the United States have this technology, while Israel is also believed to have developed such missiles.

India and China fought a war in 1962 and continue to nurse a border dispute. India has also been suspicious of Beijing’s efforts to increase its influence in the Indian Ocean in recent years.

“While China doesn’t really consider India any kind of a threat or any kind of a rival, India definitely doesn’t think in the same way,” said Rahul Bedi, a defense analyst in New Delhi.

India already has the capability of hitting anywhere inside archrival Pakistan, but has engaged in a splurge of defense spending in recent years to counter the perceived Chinese threat.

The Indian navy took command of a Russian nuclear submarine earlier this year, and India is expected to take delivery of a retrofitted Soviet-built aircraft carrier soon.

The new Agni, named for the Hindi word for fire, is part of this military buildup and was designed to hit deep inside China, Bedi said.

Government officials said the missile should not be seen as a threat.

“We have a declared no-first-use policy, and all our missile systems, they are not country specific. There is no threat to anybody,” said Ravi Gupta, spokesman for the Defense Research and Development Organization, which built the missile. “Our missile systems are purely for deterrence and to meet our security needs.”

The test came days after North Korea’s failed long-range rocket launch. North Korea said the rocket was launched to put a satellite into space, but the U.S. and other countries said it was a cover for testing long-range missile technology.

One Delhi-based Western diplomat dismissed comparisons with the international condemnation of North Korea’s launch, saying that Pyongyang was violating U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring it to suspend its missile program, while India is not considered a global threat. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on India’s security affairs.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States urges all nuclear-capable states to exercise restraint regarding nuclear capabilities.

“That said, India has a solid non-proliferation record,” he told a news briefing. “They’re engaged with the international community on non-proliferation issues.”

Some reports characterized the Agni-V as an intercontinental ballistic missile — which would make India one of the few countries to have that capability — but Gupta and analysts said its range fell short of that category.

India has no need for such sophisticated weapons, said Rajaram Nagappa, a missile expert and the head of the International Strategic and Security Studies Program at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore.

“I don’t think our threat perceptions are anything beyond this region,” he said.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.