-The Telegraph New Delhi: Successive Indian governments have ignored repeated alerts and done little to introduce laws to curb practices that could explain how lead could slip into noodles and other raw and processed food, analysts say. India introduced unleaded petrol in March 2000 but the governments since then have not moved enough to impose mandatory limits for lead in paints which remain a key source of environmental lead pollution in the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Biochemist Thuppil Venkatesh says he is not surprised by claims of food safety regulators in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi that they have detected lead, a potential toxin to humans, in Maggi noodles. For over a decade, Venkatesh, professor emeritus at St John's Medical College, Bangalore, has been trying to warn the country about what he says are dangerous levels of lead in the environment that may slip into...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Union minister of chemical and fertilizers Ananth Kumar announced here today that the Centre would set up generic medicine units in at least 100 government hospitals in Assam and supply such medicines at 50 to 60 per cent less than the market price. "We will sign a memorandum of understanding with the state government next week and Rs 2.5 lakh will be spent on construction of each unit in...

-DNA 38 districts under Green Revolution II affected by slow poison Indian government's ambitious project Green Revolution-II (GR-II) to promote growing rice in the Eastern states of India is bringing arsenic to your plates. As many as 38 districts spreading across six states out of the seven states where the scheme is being implemented are reported to be affected by arsenic. These states are Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand...

-The Third Pole Villagers in India's Greater Noida district could be the latest victims of groundwater contamination with reports of increased cancer cases spurring investigations and concern about the situation elsewhere in the country The perils of groundwater contamination were again in the spotlight recently when media reports about drinking water causing cancer surfaced from five villages in an industrial belt on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi. As medical experts...