-Down to Earth     Rural development minister shares concerns of activists at launch of Lancet series; stresses community role in fight against malnutrition India needs to be careful when it comes to agriculture-based nutrition as it opens the door for advocacy for transgenic food, said Jairam Ramesh, Union rural development minister, at the launch of the Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Nutrition. Ramesh was the chief guest at the programme on June...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Top-selling blood pressure drugs and antibiotics could become a lot cheaper as the government plans to notify price caps for 51 essential drugs early next week under a new drug price control order that was enforced last month. Under this second lot of notifications by the National Pharma Pricing Authority, the brands selling the most expensive antibiotics would have to cut their prices by 30-60%. For instance, the...

-The Indian Express Trendsetters & tweakers Act one Chhattisgarh already has a food security law in place. It became last December the first state to pass a food security bill, which covers several sections not under existing schemes. The Act makes food entitlement a right and depriving anyone of that an offence. If PDS grains, for instance, are being diverted, the officials involved will face penal provisions. The Act also seeks to empower women...

-The Business Standard Time to question the assumptions behind the food Bill In the midst of all the politicking as to how and when the draft food security Bill will become law, one thing at least is clear: the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) intends to push forward with the much-criticised legislation. UPA-II has little to show for four years in power, and perhaps it imagines that the Bill will somehow alter the...

Argumentative Indians are at it again! After sparring over the poverty line and the actual number of poor, India's renowned economists have fired up a fresh debate over the extent of malnutrition. In the earlier debate, the Planning Commission ‘reduced' poverty on paper disregarding NSSO and official committees, including the NCEUS, which determined that 77% Indians survived on less than Rs 20 a day. Columbia university economist Arvind Panagariya has...