It pays to keep away from private-public partnerships, especially if you plan to ‘only’ create awareness on a topic that complements the business you are in. Last week, foods giant Nestle was probably chewing hard on this thought. The company found itself in an uneasy position in India, when  it received unfavourable media coverage for a nutrition-awareness programme that Nestle India had launched in schools in association with universities such...

Four public-funded national universities have entered into a "confidential" pact with Nestle, one of the biggest baby food and commercial food companies, for nutrition awareness programmes for adolescent school-going girls in government-run village schools. Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) has written a letter to the secretary for school education and literacy, Anshu Vaish, protesting against "brand promotion using the public education system" and saying that the MoU (memorandum of understanding)...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

The Kisan Swaraj Yatra, a nation-wide mobilization drawing fresh attention to the “continuing agricultural crisis in India”, and calling for a comprehensive new path for Indian agriculture, will reach Chandigarh on December 2, 2010.   The bus-Yatra started at the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram on October 2, and is passing through 20 states before reaching Rajghat, New Delhi on December 11. KSY is organised by all India network of over 400 organisations named...

By marrying traditional wisdom with scientific knowledge, India needs to create dynamic, location-specific content, and build the capacities of local people to make meaningful use of communication technologies for rural development, M.S. Swaminathan, chairperson the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), said here on Saturday. He was speaking at the ‘7th Convention of the Grameen Gyan Abhiyan – Rural Knowledge Movement' on Information Communication Technology (ICT) and Food, Health and Livelihood Security...