Madhya Pradesh cancelled licences of seven 'gutkha' companies and banned its manufacture and sale in the state from April 1. MP is the first state in the country to ban tobacco, magnesium carbonate and nicotine-based 'gutkha' following provisions of the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restriction on Sales) Regulation 2011.  Health minister and government spokesman Narottam Mishra said gutkha manufacturing licences in the state will not be renewed. "Gutkha makers...

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested two senior bureaucrats-former Mumbai civic chief Jairaj Phatak and former Maharashtra information commissioner Ramanand Tiwari-in connection with the Adarsh housing society scam, taking the tally of people taken into custody to nine. The central agency has listed 14 people, including former chief minister Ashok Chavan, as accused in its first information report filed last January. Interrogations of two of the society's arrested promoters,...

India's output of e-waste has jumped by eight times in the past seven years and the open yet illegal incineration of massive quantities of such trash may lead to serious public health hazards, a government report says. According to the latest annual report of the Union ministry of environment and forest (MoEF), by the end of 2012, India would have generated a whopping eight lakh tonnes of e-waste - up eight...

-The Times of India The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has come down hard on the state government over water pollution. Denting the green image of Gujarat, CAG, in its 2011-12 'civil' report, claimed that there is an "upward trend" in the incidence of water-borne diseases due to heavily polluted water sources. It cited South Gujarat as the worst case, where industrial clusters like Vapi and Ankleshwar and Nandesari near Vadodara have been...

It is worrying that the Tendulkar method, chosen by the Planning Commission to calculate the poverty line in its latest figures, underestimates the levels of poverty while overestimating poverty reduction. The figures show that 29.8% or 360 million Indians were poor in 2009-10 as compared to 37.2% or 400 million in 2004-05. A poor person has been defined as one who spends R28 per day in urban areas and R22.5...