It's an irony of sorts. One of the most popular food chains in India is arguably one of the worst when it comes to food safety. Haldirams has been rated Red in Greenpeace's Safe Food Guide version 2.0 that ranks 25 of the most popular food companies which hold a major share of the market in the country. Based on their responsibility towards Indian consumer on the GM food issue, the Guide categorises companies as Green, Yellow and Red. Apart from Haldirams, other major companies that have made it to the Red list include Nestlé, Pepsico, Cargill, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Britannia, Godrej Hersheys Ltd, MTR, Parle Biscuits Pvt Ltd, Agrotech, Surya Foods, Amul, GSK, FieldFresh (Bharathi Enterprises] and Kelloggs. These companies have not taken any concrete steps to provide Indian consumers with GM free food for now or in future thereby being irresponsible, says Greenpeace. Now, that kind of blacklists half of one's favourites in the market that sees little or no regulation.

On August 10, a frantic message landed in the mailbox of members of a Facebook group called Save Niyamgiri. Two leaders of the Dongria-Kondh tribe’s resistance to a controversial mine in Orissa’s Lanjigarh were said to have been abducted, and had subsequently gone missing. The two men were reported to have been ambushed at the base of the hill range where they live, bundled into a vehicle at gunpoint, and driven away. They were not being held at local police stations, Lanjigarh or Muniguda. A third person accompanying them was left alone. HERE'S AN ENCOURAGING UPDATE

When skewed concepts of development are the watchwords of the day, it is more than likely that voices against this twisted sense of development don't see the light of day. So when a group that fights for tribal people around the world releases a report on dams, it is damned and made to disappear into the back hole of the news world. That is what happened to happened to the report "Serious Damage: Tribal peoples and large dams" that was released last week by Survival International. The report exposes the untold cost of obtaining "green" electricity from large hydroelectric dams. The impact on tribal people is profound. One Amazonian tribe, the Enawene Nawe, has learnt that Brazilian authorities plan to build 29 dams on its rivers. Across the Amazon, the territories of five uncontacted tribes will be affected.

The name Sania Mirza seems everywhere these days. Ubiquitous is what they say, I believe. In the sleazy, unimaginative headlines of newspapers. In those garish, framed boxes on websites. On sacrosanct Facebook status messages. And all-pervading Twitter, of course. For all the wrong reasons. Ok, I will concede that Shoaib Malik too is all over. Maybe more so. For all the same wrong reasons. But to me, it is Sania who matters first. That Paki Shoaib Malik is incidental, circumstantial. Come to think of it, I am certainly missing something here. What’s wrong with people? You have nothing better to do? Nothing better to write? Nothing better to read? Sick and tired of celebrity-driven IPL, is it?