-The Telegraph New delhi: The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to explain its failure to implement the previous government's flagship food security programme, aimed at providing cheap grains to two-thirds of the population with a special focus on children and pregnant and lactating women. The scheme, estimated to cost Rs 1.25 lakh crore a year, was launched in 2013 and was to come into force from July last year. But the...

-The Telegraph New delhi: An advertising industry watchdog, alerted by a doctor, has described as "misleading" and "unsubstantiated" a water purifier advertisement that claims the product is the first choice of a doctor and yields the purest water. The advertisement by Kent RO Systems, which features Hema Malini, describes one of its purifiers as "Doctor's 1st choice RO Purifier" and carries the line " sabse shudh paani" (the purest water). A senior official...

-The Telegraph New delhi: The Supreme Court today summoned the Union labour secretary to explain states' failure to utilise a staggering Rs 27,000 crore collected as cess for construction workers' welfare and rapped the Centre for its "unfortunate casual attitude" in the matter. A bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit, which deals with social justice matters, said the labour secretary should appear at the next hearing and submit an...

-The Telegraph New delhi: India's food safety regulator has slashed the maximum allowed limit of transfats in cooking oil and fat by half to five per cent in a move that experts are calling an important step to safeguard public health. But nutrition scientists have cautioned that the government will also need to tweak oilseed crop policies to draw the food processing industry and consumers away from unhealthy but inexpensive transfats to...

-AFP NEW delhi: Lakhs of workers across India went on strike on Wednesday in protest at planned labour law reforms, the biggest show of strength by trade unions since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office. They say labour reforms planned by Modi's government will put jobs at risk, and are demanding it scrap changes that would make it easier to lay off workers and shut down unproductive factories. All India Trade Union Congress...