-The Indian Express The Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2.3.4, prohibit the use of tobacco and nicotine as ingredients in any food products and bans sale of all food products where tobacco is present as ingredient such as gutka and pan masala. Pune: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued a directive on October 9 banning the manufacture, sale and distribution of gutka and pan masala (with tobacco and...

Confirming the rising trend of prevalence of wasting (i.e. too thin for height) among children below 5 years of age, a new report on the state of global hunger shows that during 2017 India ranks 100th among 119 countries in terms of Global Hunger Index (GHI). Entitled 2017 Global Hunger Index: The Inequalities of Hunger, the report indicates that the neighbouring countries such as China (GHI score: 7.5; GHI rank:...

-The Times of India Many members of the Niti Aayog's newly constituted Working Group on Nutrition have significant conflicts of interests. Several are representatives of international agencies, which have close ties to multinational food companies including Nestle, Hindustan Unilever, Coca Cola, Monsanto, Mars and Ajinomoto, and which have been pushing packaged therapeutic food to address malnutrition. The government has repeatedly clarified that packaged energy dense food is against India's policy on...

-Livemint.com Wholesale prices of just-harvested kharif pulses have dropped below the government’s minimum support prices (MSP) despite a lower crop output New Delhi: Wholesale prices of just harvested kharif pulses have dropped below the government’s minimum support prices (MSP) despite a lower crop output, forcing farmers to sell their produce at a loss in states such as Rajasthan. For instance, price data from wholesale markets available on the Agmarket website showed that on...

-Down to Earth NHRC has sent notices to Centre and Maharashtra, demanding detailed report in four weeks The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo motu cognizance of media reports on how several farmers in Maharashtra’s  Yavatmal district had to be hospitalised during the last three months due to an infection caused by spraying of a pesticide on the cotton crops. Many have reportedly died and condition of several other...