-Down to Earth The total health burden arising from poor diet exceeds the combined burden of unsafe sex, alcohol, drug and tobacco use     The Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition and the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) jointly launched the South Asian Policy Initiative for Improved Nutrition and Growth (SAPLING), a policy initiative to improve nutrition and diet in South Asian countries, on October 6, in New...

-The Hindu While Monsanto and Indian seed companies spar, more worrying is the confused lawmaking underpinning regulation of patents Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) breed controversy like no other. Little wonder then that Monsanto’s much-maligned Bt cotton has spawned the mother of all intellectual property (IP) disputes in India, involving at least 15 different proceedings in various courts, government agencies and tribunals at last count. Most proceedings appear to have come at the behest...

-Business Standard Fingerprint failure reports of existing Aadhaar-linked PDS cases not revealed The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has decided to complete the linking the bank accounts to Aadhaar numbers of all the beneficiaries of large social schemes, including the National Food Security Act, by March 2017. Once done, the delivery of these schemes would be based on biometric authentication linked to Aadhaar or direct cash transfers to linked bank accounts of...

-The Hindu The imposition of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication in the Public Distribution System threatens to disrupt recent progress with PDS reforms. It also deprives millions of people of essential food entitlements. India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) has improved steadily during the last 10 years. The system used to be most ineffective and corruption-ridden, with leakages of around 50 per cent at the national level, going up to 80 or 90 per cent...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Seed technology major Monsanto says it is suspending plans to introduce an upgraded version of its genetically modified cotton in India because of uncertainty in the “business and regulatory environment”. Activists say this is a “hypocritical” position. On July 6, Monsanto notified the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, the regulatory authority for approval of biotechnology traits in India, that it was withdrawing its application for the commercial release of...