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Food for thought: It is time to junk Haldirams and Nestlé
• Date published: September 2, 2010
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.
Delhi rains: All talk of weather, no talk of climate
• Date published: August 23, 2010
For the past one week, it has been the same story every day. It has been raining, pouring, making the city of Delhi a bigger mess than it was the previous day. The newspapers are full of photographs the following morning telling us the hell others have been going through too. Immediate problems beget immediate reactions. The civic bodies are to blame for the mess, we are told. And the blame game goes on.
Now, now, tell us something new, will you? While it is a fait accompli that the metropolitan disorder one has to wade through is only a clinical manifestation of the ineptitude of the Delhi government and its lethargic and corrupt civic agencies, it is a recorded fact that this has been the wettest August that the capital city has seen in 15 years.
The mills and our loss
• Date published: March 8, 2006
A disaster becomes a farce when the underlying tragedy gets buried, for whatever be the reason. That is just what has happened with the Supreme Court order paving the way for more malls and luxury apartments in the congested metropolis of Mumbai that should translate into billions of rupees for mill owners.
It is not just the court ruling which will be environmentally calamitous for Mumbai. The real tragedy lies in the fact that all voices of reason have been drowned in the Babel of eulogies that have been flooding the newspapers and the news channels. Trust the media to slut themselves for the shortsighted interests of the real estate mafia.
Female MPs and their right to pose for calendars
Anything being done for the first time generates a lot of interest, both in the media as well as among the consuming public who devour such coverage. So when it comes to female MPs posing in a glam calendar, the interest generated is bound to be on the higher side. As it was when the Public Affairs (VV – Veci verejne) party in the Czech Republic started selling a 2011 calendar featuring photographs of some of its leading female members, including four newly sworn-in lawmakers, clad in revealing outfits and posing provocatively.
Stripping bare the riot masterminds
Ten years is a numerically compulsive occasion for retrospection. Both for Javed, Teesta and their team, and for those well-wishers like us who have seen them wage a lonely battle since 1993. The introspection bit has to be done by the rest.