-Governance Now Magazine turns down red flag raised by a group of experts; says private food manufacturers part of campaign but "harmful" soft drink makers are not Days after a group of independent experts criticised the "commercial exploitation" of malnutrition and said the private sector should be kept out of any crusade against malnutrition, the Lancet, the renowned British medical journal, has advocated just the opposite, saying private players ought to...

-Frontline     Attempts by the Congress-led UPA government to adopt the ordinance route to pass the Food Security Bill fail as the opposition parties are more or less united in seeking a Bill that provides universal PDS coverage. THE National Food Security Bill (NFSB), 2013, touted as the biggest game changer for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in the 2014 parliamentary elections, will go through yet another round of discussions...

-Down to Earth     Series of papers calls for engaging private sector in fighting malnutrition Lancet, the world's leading general medical journal, recently published four papers on nutrition. Its plan to release the papers formally in India on Friday has angered the country's public health experts. Lancet has called for engaging private sector in fighting malnutrition. UNICEF estimates say about 46 per cent of all children below three in India are too small...

-The Hindu     The journalist who first wrote the story with the ‘15,000 Gujarati pilgrims' claim says his source for the figure was Anil Baluni, the BJP's spokesperson in Haldwani in Uttarakhand. For three days running, there was no reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party to reports that the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, had evacuated ‘15,000 Gujaratis' from Uttarakhand in the course of a two-day visit to the hill State. But with...

-The Hindustan Times Biting the bullet on a tough reform measure, the government on Thursday took a politically sensitive decision to double natural gas prices to $8.4 (about Rs. 510.13) per unit from April 1 next year. This move will push up the price you pay for everything from food items to public transport. On the positive side, the decision is expected to attract foreign investors in the energy sector as the...