-The Hindu Section 56-D of the Conduct of Election Rules allows scrutiny of VVPAT slips in case of disputes. New Delhi: Although the Supreme Court and the Election Commission have not agreed to the Opposition parties’ demand for 50% random physical verification of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) results with Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips, they can still take recourse to Section 56-D of the Conduct of Election Rules to request...

-The Hindu Business Line PepsiCo’s case against Gujarat’s potato growers was a patently weak one Right at the outset, it was apparent that PepsiCo never had a strong legal case against farmers growing its registered potato variety without entering into a contract. After pressure from farmers’ groups, PepsiCo has decided to withdraw cases against about 10 farmers in Gujarat and Rajasthan who were allegedly cultivating its FC-5 variety — registered by it...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Election Commission and the Union government on a PIL seeking to decriminalise the provision in Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, that makes a person liable for jail term if her complaint about discrepancy in a EVM/VVPAT turns out to be false. The PIL by Sunil Ahya came up for hearing before a bench of CJI Ranjan Gogoi...

-The Hindu The Election Commission’s coordination with social media groups for taking action against fake news and contents violating poll rules has so far resulted in the removal of 628 online posts. Since the Model Code of Conduct came into force, 574 Facebook posts have been taken off for various reasons. In all, 468 political posts were detected during the silence period as provided under the Representation of the People Act...

-Down to Earth Farmer organisations, companies say concerns not addressed The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India's (FSSAI's) organic food labelling policy has created an adverse reaction at the ground level. The idea was introduced on July 1, 2018 to support farmers and help consumers identify authentic organic produce, but labelling has pushed many farmers out of business. The certification process is tedious and costly, and the FSSAI implemented in despite farmer...