-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...

-Business Standard Govt concludes it has no mapped information on perennial rivers, dams & irrigation projects which would be impacted by coal mining To be finalised soon by the government, the number of inviolate coal blocks where mining will be banned is likely to be reduced from the originally identified 206 to less than 35. The environment ministry has decided to again dilute the parameters for identifying which of India's 793 blocks...

-The Hindu Despite growing clamour for pesticide-free produce, doubts persist about the capability of organic farming to generate high yields Kerala: Organic farming began finding momentum in Kerala since the unveiling of a policy in 2010 that set the goal of converting the entire agricultural production in the State to organic within 10 years. That policy announced by the then Left Democratic Front government is now being fast-tracked by the present United...

-The Hindu The crisis-ridden textile sector, being labour-intensive, should have been an ideal candidate for a push as part of the Prime Minister’s pet ‘Make in India’ initiative, but as the issues it is mired in remain unresolved, and with losses mounting, the situation is grim. Nearly half of India’s power looms are at a standstill: the spinning industry in the northern and southern regions has pressed in shutdowns of as...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A government task force has recommended changes in the existing drug price regulation which could result in a spike in prices of essential medicines. These include suggestions to pull several medicines out of price control, which is likely to impact drugs used in treatment of diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases as well as antibiotics. "There is a need to review the implementation of DPCO (Drugs Price...