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...
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Half of rural India needs help -Basant Kumar Mohanty
-The Telegraph New Delhi: A new survey has shown that one in every two rural households is eligible for targeted government aid - a significant jump from two earlier estimates of those entitled to blanket benefits. The provisional socio-economic and caste census (SECC) data released by finance minister Arun Jaitley show that almost half the 17.91-crore households in rural India may be considered under various targeted welfare schemes, depending on their specific...
More »Toilets in schools: Month to go for Red Fort address, private sector misses target PM set -P Vaidyanathan Iyer
-The Indian Express The private corporate sector has completed construction of just 424 toilets or 8 per cent of its commitment of 5,134 toilets. New Delhi: With just over a month to go for Independence Day, the private corporate sector has fared the worst in building school toilets to meet the target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 15 last year. He had announced construction of toilets in all...
More »India sees dip in malnutrition, still trails sub-Saharan Africa
-Hindustan Times India saw a dip of over 14% in the number of malnourished children in the age group of 0 to 6 years -- the sharpest decline in 25 years -- a UNICEF survey has revealed. The country, however, lags behind sub-Saharan Africa where 21% children are malnourished. According to the survey, commissioned by the women and child development ministry of the UPA-2 government, the percentage of underweight children in the...
More »SECC reveals two Indias, but government refuses to disclose caste data -Iftikhar Gilani
-DNA OBCs make upto 66.48% of the total 17.92 crore rural households – much higher than 54% decided by the Mandal Commission in 1980 Even as the Union government shied away from releasing the caste data collected in 2011, the rural socio-economic survey data put out on Friday speaks of two Indias – that of the affluent and the poor. Around 73 % of the country's people live in villages, with the...
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