A three member committee was directed by the NGT to probe the allegations of encroachment by stone crusher units on the river bed of Ganga flowing through Sahibganj in Jharkhand. The committee after visiting the site will submit its report within a period of three weeks. In case violations are …
Pesticide residue norms: Cola majors yet to clean up their act, govt drags its feet. Sunita Narain, the feisty director of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), likens her campaign against pesticide levels in India's soft drinks to "a dog with a bone that it is determined not to …
When Parliament convenes for the monsoon session, the government plans to introduce the Food Safety and Standards Bill, 2005. I am sure the government will hope there is enough mayhem to distract the attention of legislators from the bill, which has been crafted carefully to weaken consumer protection in the …
in a major step towards checking adulteration in soft drinks, the Drinks and Carbonated Beverages Sectional Committee (fad 14) of the Bureau of Indian Standards (bis) has decided to segregate soft drinks as a separate category for setting final product standards. The decision was taken in the tenth meeting of …
An Act to make provision for prevention of adulteration of the food. This Act may be called the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. It extends to the whole of India. It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, …
the Joint Parliamentary Committee (jpc) has finally delivered its verdict. Affirming that the Centre for Science and Environment's (cse) findings about the presence of pesticide residues in aerated water were correct, the panel dismissed as hot air soft drink manufacturers' claims that their products are safe. It was cse which …
the soft drink episode has apparently made the authorities wise up to the need for hard resolve. On August 26, 2003, the Union ministry of health and family welfare (mohfw) issued a draft notification amending the Prevention of Food Adulteration (pfa) Rules, 1955, to give them more teeth. The proposed …
It is interesting how the coalitions of the willing and the wanting shift in this world. When it comes to negotiations on ecological globalisation - conventions from climate change to biodiversity protection - the powers almost always align as follows: on one side, the US flanked by its partners (Japan, …
governments in India seem to have a knack of jumping off the deep end, taking little care to first get their homework right. If the recent decision to ratify the multilateral Cartegena protocol on biosafety (cpb) (see also) without first ensuring a strong domestic legislation on import of genetically modified …
A yummy scoop of ice-cream may be the best way to beat the heat. But some unpalatable facts about the standards being adhered to by ice- cream makers may raise dollops of doubts about the frozen delight. According to a recent study by Consumer Education and Research Society (cers), Ahmedabad, …
Since 1949, China has shown the capacity to provide adequate nutrition to most of its population. Feeding one-fifth of humankind with only 9 percent of the world's arable land is not easy. Per capita nutrition has increased from less than 1,700 calories per day in 1960 to more than 2,700 …
the Delhi government's Prevention of Food Adulteration (pfa) Department has recently seized 20 samples of substandard milk. The 20 samples were a part of 63 samples taken from milk tankers entering Delhi from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as well as, from milk dairies and polypack milk supplied by different companies. …
Two managers of a fats recycling firm have been charged with fraud for Europe's dioxin-in-food scare ( Down To Earth , Vol 8, No 4). "There are two people who have been questioned by the judge, a brother and sister, the two managers of the business. The woman was released, …
The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation asking him to place before it the probe report on the adulteration of mustard oil which resulted in outbreak of dropsy claiming over 60 lives last year. The court also asked the Delhi government …
L N MODI, the managing trustee of the Bharatiya Cattle Research Foundation, Delhi, said that adulteration of milk is on the rise. Speaking at a press confer- ence in Delhi, he informed that in 1996, as many as 900 cases of adulteration were recorded in Meerut, Faizabad, Agra, Bareilly and …
THE ZING went out of Indian cooking and a nationwide panic gripped the country as mustard oil, the country's most favoured cooking medium, had to be banned and all stocks seized by the government. Among these were also stocks belonging to the prestigious National Dairy Development Board. The mustard oil …
OVER centuries we have written innumerable laws to protect ourselves from each other's foolishness, negligence, incompetence or evil. Few of those laws forbid anything absolutely. Murder we can get away with, in self-defence or insanity. We can build on floodplains, if we really want to. The law is strict about …
TAKING a cue from the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) controversy, the government has decided to make changes in the level of monosodium glutamate permitted in food. The KFC's Delhi outlet reopened on December 4, following the Delhi High Court ruling quashing the Delhi municipal corporation's order cancelling its licence. It …
