DINAKARAN NEWS

Grant of one additional increment of 3% of basic pay to employees on award of Selection Grade / Special Grade in the revised scales of pay – Orders – Issued.

Ban on gutka, pan masala, khaini, supari – can we finally say goodbye?

Exactly one year after the landmark decision to ban gutka and pan masala, the Maharashtra government became the first state which will look to prohibit all flavoured chewing tobacco and supari products sold under whatever name or in whatever combination. That means the state government is the first one to wake up to the fact that tobacco and other unpackaged, unbranded products like zarda, khaini, kharra which are being sold on the black market. The government has also decided to make it a crime to sell any of the aforementioned products; vendors and manufacturers are likely to attract 10-year jail terms! One man who is extremely happy with this move is Tata Memorial Hospital’s anti-tobacco campaigner extraordinaire Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi who has been incessantly campaigning against tobacco use for a long time. Here’s his view on the move:

It’s in every sense a historic judgement. We shall see the health benefits in as short a time span as the next five years as cancer rates go down. The simple ban on gutka and pan masala didn’t completely cover all the products that like zarda, khaini, kharra, masher, mawa and flavoured supari all of which pose innumerable health hazards. WHO has classified chewing tobacco as a confirmed carcinogen and there’s enough evidence to suggest a causal link with various other diseases like heart ailments, hypertension, increased risk of stroke and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Dangers of gutka, khaini and other forms of smokeless tobacco

Sold as mouth fresheners or something similar, these products use menthol, perfume, spices, sugar, etc. to mask the bitter taste of tobacco and other carcinogens and get youngsters hooked. The truth is that tobacco remains the most dangerous consumer product in the world in the 21st century which kills half its patrons (and I see many of them every day, those who’ve been  disfigured by the most horrible forms of oral and mouth cancer) and its very existence is a bane to mankind.

 In India, tobacco causes 45% of all cancer deaths and 20% of all deaths. People find it impossible to quit because of the addictive nature of the chemical nicotine – so addictive that WHO considers tobacco addiction a disease which sadly afflicts one out of every three Indian. Along with tobacco, gutka and pan masala contains other harmful metal content like – lead, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, copper and nickel. Areca nut or betel nut – one of the main ingredients of all these products is a confirmed carcinogen according to WHO and a cause of severe illnesses. (Read: Have you joined the War on Tobacco)

Adverse effects of areca nut

• Highly addictive
• Usually taken along with smokeless tobacco
• International Agency for research on Cancer, World Health Organization has classified Areca Nut as confirmed cancer causing substances.
• It contains several polyphenols and nitrosamines that are confirmed carcinogenic.
• It causes impairment of oral and dental health.
• Its usage is strongly associated with precancerous lesions and cancer of mouth that is a leading cancer in India.
• Studies have shown association between supari chewing and cancers of the Liver, oesophagus,  stomach and lung.
• Supari use is associated with hypertension and ischemic heart disease.
• Usage of Supari adversely affects reproductive health in women and also affects fetus.
• Supari chewing is associated with diabetes, obesity and several metabolic disorders.

As a result India has one of the highest oral cancer rates in the world (1 lakh every year) and half of them die within the first 12 months of diagnosis.

A watertight legal move

The Maharashtra government by ensuring gutka and pan masala are classified as food has ensured that it comes under the purview of the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 (FSSA) which gives the government a watertight case to for its continued ban. Smokeless tobacco lobbyists had argued that since these products contained tobacco and had no nutritional value they couldn’t be classified as food and would be outside the purview of the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 and should instead come under the Tobacco Act 2003 but thankfully common sense prevailed and the ban was upheld.

While bans have been tried earlier, this time the law is watertight so that the unscrupulous elements of the tobacco lobby cannot find loopholes to sell their products legally. Under the FSSA any food item containing nicotine and tobacco are banned since they’re injurious to health.  (Read: Gutka ban – only on paper) The Commissioner of Food Safety of the State is empowered under Section 30 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 to prohibit in the product.

It’s therefore illegal to manufacture, store, sell, and distribute any sort of flavoured tobacco and flavoured supari by whatsoever name it is available in the market in the state of Maharashtra in the interest of public health! Now if only the rest of India could follow suit so we can say goodbye to this evil menace once and for all.

HC gives ten days to junk food at schools

  

Representational pic

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday gave the Centre a 10-day deadline to formulate guidelines to regulate the sale of junk food and aerated drinks in schools across the country.

The bench comprising of Chief Justice BD Ahmed and Justice Vibhu Bakhru also directed the government, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and other stakeholders in the matter to submit their joint comments on the draft guidelines within a period of two weeks. The court has fixed September 4 for the next hearing.

The court’s decision came after a petition was filed by NGO Uday Foundation in December 2010, seeking a direction to ban sale of junk food and aerated drinks in and around schools.

In April, the Centre told the court that private firm AC Nielsen QRG-MARG Pvt Ltd was framing norms to regulate availability of junk foods and carbonated drinks within 500 yards of schools. The court said the final guidelines will be made after the food processing companies are consulted for their opinions on the draft guidelines. Additional solicitor general Rajeeve Mehra assured the court that the draft guidelines will be filed on July 24.

“Unfortunately, the draft guidelines are not ready. Now, the counsel for the Centre says that the draft guidelines would be ready within 10 days,” the court said. It also told all parties that no further extension will be granted to them.

In January, the court had given six month’s time to the centre and FSSAI to frame similar guidelines. The court had also asked FSSAI to consult the All India Food Processors’ Association (AIFPA) and restaurant associations while framing the guidelines.

Firstpost India Worms on the plate: A close-up look at the Delhi midday meal scheme

New Delhi: For the average middle class Indian, the Midday Meal (MDM) scheme in Delhi government schools may appear to be a ticking bomb. The schools are under-resourced, ingredients poor, safety checks minimal, and neither the NGO which prepares the food nor the teachers who distribute it can vouch for the quality of the food – which often contains worms, and one occasion, a rat. But the school staff claim the MDM in the nation’s capital is one of the better run programmes.

Sanjay Srivastava (name changed), a principal in one of the 13 schools run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), in East Delhi’s Trilokpuri area says the midday meals in Delhi are far safer than others in the rural heartland.

“What happened in Bihar should not have happened. It is a huge tragedy. But just because there are a few bad apples in the system doesn’t mean everyone is like that,” Srivastava said.

A meal being served under the scheme in a Delhi school. Arlene Chang/ Firstpost

“Delhi’s MDM scheme is much safer and more stringent that way. It’s not like we never have complaints about the food, but they are minor ones like the food not being hot when it arrives or the rice or pulses not having been cooked well,” he told Firstpost.

However, Parvati, a local resident whose son is in class 1 in Singh’s school complained about the quality of food.

“While my son has never fallen ill because of it, at least twice I have seen small white worms in the food my son got home from school. The worms are tiny and look like rice and many a time it could have been consumed without being noticed,” she said.

Another parent, Hemlata, whose son also studies in class 1 in the school said that he has also had a bad experience with the food served in school.

“Once my son came home with food served in school, which was smelling,” she said.

An NGO that runs kitchens and serving food to the East Delhi area of Trilokpuri, does not refute these allegations, but says the government and teachers are to be blamed for this.

Stri Shakti, one of the NGOs contracted to prepare and distribute midday meals, has five centralized kitchens across Delhi and provides food to 591 schools. Their Loni kitchen, under which the Trilokpura area falls, supplies food for midday meals to 208 schools each day.

According to Jaspreet Singh, Manager, Srti Shakti, the NGO he says follows the strictest norms of hygiene and cleanliness in cooking, but some things cannot be avoided and the government does not cooperate.

“A lot of times in this season there are insects which are usually inside the pulses and even the rice we receive from the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Green leafy veggies also pose a problem in this season, with worms in them,” he said.

“We try our best to do what we can with the conditions we are given and in fact we have requested the government to have menus that are seasonal so that we don’t have these problems, but their menu throughout the year is fixed,” he said.

Stri Shakti claims it serves 3,60,000 students each day across Delhi and that they make sure the food reaches schools within 1.5 hours from the time it leaves from the kitchen. The food is transported in steel containers and in hired tempos. The NGO says it can only do so much given government constraints.

“We get 100 gms of rice and wheat per child + Rs. 3.11/child (for other ingredients, vegetables, oil, transport). While we have a tie up with ingredient companies and wholesale vegetable vendors, enabling us to buy at less than MRP, we spend Rs. 5-6/child in Delhi,” Singh of Stri Shakti told Firstpost.

“We cover the extra costs through personal donations and profits made by our other units,” he said.

If the NGO’s hands are tied, the schools faces the challenge of making the most of too few hands. Principals and teachers in the schools say that severe under-staffing makes the management of the midday meal scheme more difficult.

Far from the prescribed student teacher ratio of 40:1 under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, most of the 2,720 government schools in Delhi have a ratio 1.5 times that number or more.  Despite the Trilokpuri school having 350 students and conducting classes from standard 1 to 5, with each standard having two sections, it has only six teachers presently.

It amounts to a ratio of 58.3 students to a teacher. In April this year, the school had only four teachers — making the student to teacher ratio 88:1, more than double the prescribed ratio.

Srivastava said his school’s teachers are already overworked, and yet have no choice but to take up additional responsibilities thrust on them by virtue of being government employees. Teachers already playing the role of administrators, clerks and peons in the school. But they are also forced to shoulder additional the responsibilities during elections, census taking and other government surveys. Checking food safety becomes one more task in an already long chore list.

“After already performing more than 5 duties at any given time, the midday meal scheme puts on us an additional responsibility. When will we have time to teach the students?” asks 45-year old Ramesh Garg (name changed), who has taught at the school for the last 17 years.

Students taking a midday meal. Arlene Chang/ Firstpost

Srivastava says while the midday meal scheme is welcome, he says schools first priority is to educate the children.

“Students need teachers more than they need food. It’s more important that they get a good education. Parents who have given birth to them will feed them somehow, but if they don’t learn what they are supposed to in school, parents cannot teach them that,” he told Firstpost.

The over-burdened teachers and principal often become the immediate target for parents’ anger when there are problems with the food.

“We are helpless in conducting quality checks because it’s not like we have our own kitchen. If we did we could first hand monitor it. The most we can do, which we do, is to eat the food before we offer it to the children to make sure it’s safe. We also stir the food to check for any visible signs of it being unsafe. But our hands are tied beyond that,” he said.

Besides, doing more can land an over-enthusiastic educator in trouble.

“A few years ago, a principal in a nearby school found a rat in the midday meal supplied to his school. He sent it to a lab and complained about it to the authorities. He was not only suspended earlier than his retirement, but does not get pension money yet,” said Garg.

A teacher for 22 years, and now the principal of an MCD school in RK Puram, told Firstpost that given the shortage of teachers it was difficult to manage.

“Each teacher teaches their students six subjects. In addition our school also teaches the kids computers. So each of us teach 7 subjects. We also serve the midday meal to students ourselves,” the RK Puram school’s principal said. “What all can we do?”

Milma to remove imprint by October 31

‘Did not violate any law’

Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (Milma) will remove the imprint “fresh and pure” from its milk sachets by October 31, Milma has assured the Kerala High Court.

Milma took the decision to remove the imprint from its packets following a High Court directive.

In an additional affidavit filed in the Kerala High Court, Milma said dairies under it were keeping sufficient quantity of low density polyethylene film (LDPE) for packaging milk.

In fact, it kept the film stock for two to three months with all statutory printing. The present stock of the film would be exhausted only by the end of October. Besides, a new design would have to be developed and new packing material was to be sourced.

Therefore, introduction of new packets after removing the phrase “fresh and pure” would be possible only by October 31. Milma, therefore, sought time till October 31 to keep the stock of the film and change over to the new packets.

Milma contended that it had not violated provisions of any law while using the words “fresh and pure’ on its sachets. The affidavit added that even if milk was procured from farmers, the SNF (solid non fat) contents would not attain the required standard prescribed by the Food Safety Standards Act and Rules as its average SNF content was lower than the standards prescribed by the Act.

‘Used by many’

Therefore, it was mandatory that milk procured even from the farmers should be standardised by adding SNF; either in the form of skimmed milk powder or skimmed milk. Most of the other milk producers in the State were also using the same process for preparing pasteurised milk.

The court issued the directive on an appeal filed by Martin Paiva of Kochi against a single judge’s verdict allowing Milma to hike the prices of milk. It was brought to the notice of the court that Milma was announcing on its packets that its milk was fresh and pure despite the fact that it was adding skimmed milk powder.

Meanwhile, the petitioner in reply to the affidavit said Milma could very well cover the words “fresh and pure” by pasting blank label over it.

When Milma hiked the prices of its milk, it would soon print revised price over the old prices on the sachets. This practice could be adopted for removing the “fresh and pure” imprint from its packets.

Frame norms for junk food sale near schools in 10 days: HC

The Centre was on Wednesday given a 10-day deadline by the Delhi High Court to come out with detailed guidelines for regulating sale of junk food and aerated drinks on and around school premises in the country.

"No further extension will be given," a bench headed by Acting Chief Justice B D Ahmad firmly told the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

Terming the non-filing of draft guidelines by the Centre as "unfortunate", the court asked the FSSAI to submit it within 10 days.

Earlier, Additional Solicitor General Rajeeve Mehra had assured the court that the draft guidelines would be filed by July this year.

"Earlier, this court had recorded that draft guidelines would be filed on July 24. Unfortunately, the draft guidelines are not ready. Now, the counsel for the Centre states that the draft guidelines would be ready within 10 days. Let it be filed within 10 days," the bench, also comprising Justice Vibhu Bakhru, said during the hearing and scheduled the next hearing for September 4.

"It is expected that parties shall adhere to this timeline and no extension would be given by this court," it said, adding that the Centre would share the report with other stakeholders who will also give their suggestions or comments on the issue.

Earlier, the Centre had said that private firm AC Nielsen QRG-MARG Pvt Ltd was in the process of framing norms to regulate availability of junk food and carbonated drinks within 500 metres of schools.

It had also said that after the draft guidelines were prepared, the food processing companies would be consulted for their opinions and then the final guidelines would be made.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Rakesh Prabhakar, a lawyer for NGO 'Uday Foundation', seeking a direction banning sale of junk food and aerated drinks in and around schools.

பதுக்கி வைத்திருந்தபான்பராக் பறிமுதல்

சேலம்: சேலம்- திருச்சி மெயின் ரோட்டில் உள்ள மொத்த விற்பனை கடைகளில் உணவு பாதுகாப்பு அதிகாரிகள் மற்றும் மாநகராட்சி சுகாதார ஆய்வாளர்கள் அதிரடி சோதனை மேற்கொண்டனர். அங்கு பதுக்கி வைக்கப்பட்டிருந்த, பான்பராக், பாக்கெட்டுக்குள் பறிமுதல் செய்யப்பட்டது.தமிழகத்தில், பான்பராக், புகையிலை உள்ளிட்ட போதை வஸ்துகளை விற்பனை செய்வதற்கு தடை விதிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. சேலம் மாநகராட்சிக்குட்பட்ட திருச்சி மெயின்ரோட்டில் உள்ள விநாயகா ஸ்டோர்ஸ், முகமது முகா ஆகிய மொத்த விற்பனை கடைகளில், உணவுப்பாதுகாப்பு அதிகாரி திருமூர்த்தி, சேலம் மாநகராட்சி சுகாதார ஆய்வாளர்கள், சரவணன், சங்கர், சேகர் ஆகியோர் அதிரடியாக ஆய்வு மேற்கொண்டனர்.இரண்டு கடைகளிலும், பான்பராக், ஹான்ஸ் உள்ளிட்ட பொருட்களும், பிளாஸ்டிக் கப்புகளும் விற்பனைக்கு வைத்திருந்ததை கண்டுப்பிடித்து, அவற்றை பறிமுதல் செய்தனர்.