THE controversy over Maggi instant noodles has once again highlighted the issues plaguing food safety in India. Not only does the issue raise critical questions about safe food production by multinational companies such as Nestle but it also foregrounds the institutional fault lines when it comes to ensuring food safety. Frontline spoke to Sunita Narain, who heads the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the organisation instrumental in initiating...

-PTI KOCHI: Seeking to capitalise the huge demand for value-added fish products in the country, Kerala government will set up a fully mechanised manufacturing and processing facility with international standards to produce varieties of fish products. Minister for fisheries, ports and excise K Babu today said a detailed project report had been prepared and submitted to the National Fisheries Board. "The new unit will increase the production capacity from 5 tonnes to 15...

-The Hindu The National Nutrition Monitoring Board (NNMB), set up in 1972, has been doing silent, and remarkable service to the nation. We tend to look at a nation’s progress increasingly, and almost exclusively, in terms of its economic and business statistics. India is now invited to the high table as a growing economy, with its annual financial growth rate of over 4 per cent. Internally too, we have setup many mechanisms,...

-The Indian Express In Madhya Pradesh’s Hoshangabad district, reeling under malnourishment, govt shuts eggs out of anganwadis while locals see hope in poultry farming Maryarpura (Hoshangabad): Gagan Lachhu is so emaciated that he can hardly walk on his own. In a few months he will turn two but his weight is an alarming six kilograms. “Once, we nearly forced his mother to admit him at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre in Itarsi...

-PTI Jammu: Yet to come to terms with the losses suffered in the devastating floods in 2014, farmers in Jammu district received another rude shock when the state government issued them compensation cheques ranging from a meagre Rs 32 to Rs 113. Refusing to accept the paltry dole, the farmers returned the cheques saying the PDP-BJP government has "rubbed salt into their wounds". Farmers in Saroor village of Marh tehsil of Jammu district...