Dublin Ireland-headquartered Medtronic Plc., announced that it will provide ear care to 10 million underprivileged people in India by 2025 through its program called ‘Shruti‘ (a term that means ‘hearing’ in Sanskrit).
Medtronic plans to use its health system innovation Shruti to assess and improve screening and treatment protocols, measure improvements in the lives of patients, and forge better partnerships with health service providers. Shruti‘s ear screening kit is designed in Bangalore and manufactured in Chennai said Madan Krishnan, managing director, India Medtronic Pvt. Ltd. The kit consists of an otoscope, a smartphone, a light source for the otoscope, and a mobile data SIM card. A telemedicine application is loaded onto the device to record an entire case, including images of the ear and provisional diagnosis. The completed test is then transmitted over 3G to a cloud server and is accessed and assessed by a physician.
Medtronic also conducts this program in twenty-five hospitals across eighteen cities in India and in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Through a network of community health workers, more than 390,000 people have been screened and more than 8,000 people have received treatment at a significantly reduced cost through the Shruti program.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
