There is a rush to cash in on micronutrient deficiency in India through fortification of food Andhra Pradesh Foods, a state government enterprise, is ramping up its fortified food production capacity. It provides ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook foods like upma mix, sweet porridge and khichdi mix, fortified with iron, zinc and other vitamins, to infants and pregnant and lactating women under the Centre’s Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). The effort to double its...

-PTI   Reflecting the utmost priority to address farm sector woes, a first-of-its-kind workshop was held on Wednesday at the initiative of President Pratibha Patil where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pitched for raising agriculture output to provide food security to citizens.  At the workshop attended by eight Union ministers, 20 governors, five chief ministers and 37 vice chancellors of agricultural universities, Patil underlined the need for "out-of-the-box" solutions to enhance productivity in rainfed...

The government has asked states including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar to set up grain procuring infrastructure to increase lifting from the farmers so that requirement for the proposed food security law could be met. The Food Corporation of India, chairman and managing director, Siraj Hussain said state-level procuring agencies can help in arranging sufficient credit facilities for carrying out grain purchase activities without depending on the Central...

The recent India-Australia cricket matches drew angry protests from anti-tobacco activists. The reason was the display of an advertisement by an Indian chewing tobacco company. The Australian cricket administrators were quick to react and have ordered the immediate removal of the advertisement. A boundary line advertisement of Kamala Pasand chewing tobacco was on display during the test series in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Adelaide held between January and February 2012. The...

On December 23, 2011, in a criminal case filed by Vinay Rai, editor of a Delhi-based Urdu daily called Akbari , the Metropolitan Magistrate, Patiala House, directed the Ministry of External Affairs to have summons served on over 21 websites based abroad on the grounds that offences of sale of obscene books and obscene objects to young persons and criminal conspiracy could be made out against these sites under sections...