Help your child lose the excessive weight by cutting down on junk and encouraging outdoor activity.

Palam Vihar residents have decided to move court against the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) for failing to stop water pollution in the colony. Untreated sewage and factory effluents flow into the master drain and contaminate the water table, say residents.

They plan to file a contempt case in the Punjab and Haryana High Court against Huda for failing check to pollution in the stormwater drain which passes through Palam Vihar.

The developer, Ansals, had told owners that it was a natural drain and would be developed as a green belt. In 2004-05, Huda began discharging waste and effluents into it, said residents.

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Seed money for dozens of summer meal programs serving underprivileged youths has been bottled up for weeks, thanks to a shift in the way the state Education Departmentand the rest of the state, pays its bills.

At issue are the advance payments that community groups use to start up their summer nutrition programs.

“As of today, not a penny has gone out,” Morton Avigdor, a Brooklyn lawyer, said on Monday. He represents several meal providers around New York.

A north Canberra bakery has been fined $12 thousand dollars for breaches of food safety laws.

The bakery in Charnwood is the latest Canberra food outlet to be convicted in the ACT Magistrates Court for having poor food handling standards and a dirty kitchen.

The court heard since the charges were laid last year the owners have spent more than $100 thousand on a renovation and have improved their practices to meet the ACT’s legal guidelines.

The court heard on the day of the inspection the kitchen had been found with dirt, flour and grease caked on various items.

A batch of pies had also been out of the oven and not refrigerated for more than six hours.

Magistrate Bernadette Boss told the court she appreciated the efforts taken to clean up the bakery but said the potential dangers to the public had to be taken into account.

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KOCHI: While the recent statewide raids in hotels and restaurants may not have gone down too well with the Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association, which even went on a strike in protest, the move has been welcomed by the Bakers Association Kerala (Bake).

“We welcome the steps taken by food safety officers and local bodies for ensuring hygiene in restaurants,” Bake president P M Sankaran said on Monday.

Meanwhile, in an effort to ensure that all bakeries maintain a hygienic environment as well as serve quality food, the association will launch a month-long awareness programme — Shuchitvam Mahatvam — for bakery owners. As part of the move, bakeries in the state will also introduce an open kitchen facility from August 1, allowing customers to observe the preparation of bakery products.

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BEIJING: China’s government said on Monday it will launch projects to attract private investment in energy, health and other industries as it tries to reverse an economic slump.

The Cabinet announcement adds to a flurry of efforts to stimulate growth that has fallen to a three-year low, raising the threat of job losses and social unrest. The International Monetary Fund said last week China probably has achieved a “soft landing” but warned “global headwinds are increasing” due to Europe’s debt crisis and a weak US recovery.

Beijing said previously that boosting private sector investment is a key part of its recovery plan but there is no sign struggling entrepreneurs are willing to spend. Some private businesspeople say monthly sales have fallen by up to 50 per cent in recent months.

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The newly notified Food Safety & Standards Act, 2006, does not seem to be effective in curbing adulteration of food articles as is the case with previous Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.

This has become evident from statistics which show that the Government of Kerala has failed to take stringent action against the issue during the period 2004-2012. An RTI application filed by the Human Rights Defence Forum (HRDF), Kerala, has revealed the details.

Explaining to F&B News, D B Binu, general secretary, HRDF, Kerala, said, “Surprisingly, out of the 95,261 samples tested between 2004 and 2012, 2,190 food samples were found to be adulterated and authorities initiated action in only 1,912 cases.”

Binu explained that the information was revealed to the organisation based on the RTI filed by it and further probe in the case evolved based on the number of food adulteration cases being reported in Kerala by the media.

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History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

Flipping through old photos and munching on a handful of nuts may make you feel happier and path towards health.

With its parks, centuries-old palaces, history and culture, Beijing should be one of the more pleasant capitals of the world. Instead, it’s considered among the worst to live in because of chronic air pollution.

Lung cancer rates are rising among the 20 million residents of China’s capital, health officials say. For many multinational companies, Beijing is considered a hardship posting and, despite the extra allowances that classification brings, some executives are leaving.

On some days, Beijing is enveloped in a brownish-grey smog, so thick it gets indoors, stings the eyes and darkens the sky in the middle of the day.

Smoke from factories and heating plants, winds blowing in from the Gobi Desert and fumes from millions of vehicles can combine to blanket the city in this pungent shroud for days. English-speaking residents sometimes call the city “Greyjing” or “Beige-jing”.

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A ‘Nutrition mission’ for undernourished children in the country is in the offing. And it promises to accomplish what at least eight other welfare schemes of the central government have failed to achieve.

The UPA government, which has been critical of its own ‘deficiencies’ in tacking nutritional challenges, has chalked out a plan to meet the food requirement of over eight crore children in the country.

“The government plans to convert the existing ‘ineffective’ Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) into a national mission, which would target eight crore children in the age group of 0-6 years, mostly under two years, in 14 lakh anganwadis,” a top government official said.

The idea has been mooted by the women and child development ministry on the lines of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Sarva Sikhsha Abhiyan.

The ‘nutrition mission’ would come with an enhanced budgetary allocation, increasing the daily nutritional entitlement to Rs.7 per child from the existing Rs.4.

THE KUALA LUMPUR City Hall (DBKL) will be monitoring cleanliness and hygiene at Ramadan bazaars in the city closely until the end of the fasting period.

DBKL Health and Environment Department director Dr Hayati Abdullah said the operation was to ensure all food sold by the stall operators was fit for consumption and adhered to rules and guidelines provided.

“This is done every year,” she told reporters after taking samples from the Ramadan bazaar in Bandar Tun Razak.

Throughout the operation, the monitoring and checking would include food sampling and sanitary checks.

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The National Family Health Survey, India’s primary source of health and nutrition data, is back on. The fourth round of the survey, which was believed to have been controversially called off, will be conducted between 2013 and 2014 and its results will be out over 2014-15, the health ministry has confirmed.

In April this year, it was reported that the ministry of health and family welfare had taken the controversial decision to discontinue the NFHS and only retain two other existing health surveys, the Annual Health Survey (AHS) which is conducted in India’s backward states and the District Level Health Survey (DLHS). Between them, the AHS and the DLHS do not cover all the indicators in the NFHS, the most significant omission being nutrition. The AHS, which will cover some nutrition information, only covers eight backward states and Assam.

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A room packed with local restaurateurs listened with rapt attention as lessons were given on how to keep their kitchens clean and hygienic at DNA’s Hygiene For Kitchens workshop.

The New Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006, which came into effect in 2011, requires every food business operator to stick to food safety norms.

The workshop, which was organised in association with the Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association and Equinox Labs on July 26, focused on helping restaurateurs follow the norms prescribed by the state Food and Drug Administration under the FSSA.

More than 150 restaurateurs were unaware whether their cooks or waiters washed hands after visiting theloo. “Washing hands is one of the basic requirements to ensure food safety. Many a times, adequate soap is not available for the food handlers,” said Ashwin Bhadri, head, business relations at Equinox Labs.

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After a year delay, the Delhi Government has decided to implement the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations 2011 from the first week of August. This means food safety licence would be mandatory for tea stalls, dhabas, fruit and vegetable sellers, grocery shops, milk vendors, canteens, caterers, restaurants, hotels, food processors in the national Capital. Even trucks and other vehicles engaged in transporting food will have to obtain licences to this effect.

On the delay in the implementation of the Regulation, Health Minister Ashok Kumar Walia told The Pioneer that the implementation had been extended six month by the Central Government. “As far as Delhi is concerned, a Hyderabad-based company will open six counters in the Capital so that hawkers and vendors could be registered,” Walia said, adding the Food Safety and Standards Act would ensure improved quality of food for the consumers and censure misleading claims and advertisement by those in food business.

The implementation of Food Safety and Standards Act will ensure improved quality of food for the consumers and censure misleading claims and advertisement by those in food business.

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