-Down to Earth Traders say Food Safety and Standards Act rolls out red carpet for multinationals The Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA) of 2006 has not gone down well with food business operators. They say sections of the Act dealing with licensing, registration, hygiene standards, penalty provisions and powers of food safety inspectors are “draconian”. FSSA, which came into force in August last year, replaces the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA)...

The government will soon come out with an ambulance code to check the practice of vans and goods vehicles being Turned into makeshift and ill-equipped ambulances that pose a risk to patients’ lives and limbs. By the end of this month, a committee that includes doctors is expected to finalise the draft of the national ambulance code, which will specify requirements from design to equipment to personnel. (See chart) “Most ambulances in...

-The Business Standard MSP hikes will stoke food inflation The government’s new kharif pricing policy, suggesting a steep 16 to 53 per cent increase in the minimum support prices (MSPs) of various crops, is unlikely to fully satisfy farmers even as it will stoke food inflation and swell the food subsidy bill. Approval of the new prices by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) came on the day that inflation numbers...

Elders devise a system to share water among arecanut farmers Disputes over sharing of water from Bukkarayanakere were common among arecanut growers in Doddabukkasagar of Kadur taluk until around 40 years ago. A few senior citizens came together in the early 1970s and decided to resolve them forever by devising a new system, according to which water is released periodically to all farmers. Now, disputes over water are unheard of in the...

-Live Mint To maintain his constant stream of RTI petitions, Agrawal says he gets ideas from day-to-day observations, news reports, government insiders, whistle-blowers and journalists. In the summer of 1985, a cloth merchant in Chandni Chowk, the crowded market in the old quarters of Delhi, received a call in response to a letter he had written to the papers asking why his favourite weekly television serial, Rajani, could not be aired daily...