Nilutpal Thakur
The LuLu Mall and Hypermarket in Kochi — a packager’s dreamland
Hypermarkets and supermarkets are commonplace in all modern cities. But this is one hypermarket that beats them all – at least on the face of it. The LuLu Hypermarket in Kochi. Located in a...
#BeatPlasticPollution – All words and little action
This World Environment Day on 5 June, the theme was #BeatPlasticPollution. Debates were held across forums, brands flaunted their 'sustainable alternatives', the media went overboard with special reports with some alarming statistics about plastic...
The Indian rice export ban
Visuals of people – mainly Indians – lining up in stores in the US with dozens of bags of rice went viral toward the last week of July. The trigger of the panic buying:...
International Year of Millets 2023
There’s a new, old superfood in town – millets.
Once a staple for farmers in many parts of India, and the world, millets – essentially a diverse group of coarse cereals with high nutritional benefits...
Amul’s RS Sodhi to join Reliance Retail
RS Sodhi, former managing director of dairy giant Amul who had stepped down from his position early in January in a sudden turn of events that took the corporate world by storm, will join...
Climate change, extreme weather and food security
In our last editorial, we referred to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Global Food Policy 2022 report, which estimates that climate change could escalate the hunger issue among Indians by 2030. Climate change...
Operation flood 2.0 – the new revolution in milk packaging
In the 1970s, the white revolution, or operation flood as it was popularly known, transformed India from a milk-deficient nation to the world’s largest milk producer – 198.4 million tonnes in 2020 as per...
Food crises may increase without systemic change: FAO
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned that the world’s ability to nourish its burgeoning population is under threat and sustainable agrifood systems will be impossible to achieve without...
Cautious optimism as economy slowly comes back on track
First the grim part – at least on the face of it. Government data released on 30 November 2022 shows that the Indian economy grew by 6.3% in the July-September quarter of 2022. This...
GM mustard cleared for environmental release, field trials
In the last week of October, the Indian government’s Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) ordered the environmental release of the GM (genetically modified) mustard—the Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11), 20 years after the controversial Bt...