In the first week of April this year, a group of men came and stood outside the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi. They carried placards with offensive slogans directed at me. We understood the 'protesters' were ostensibly from an NGO we believed was a front for the pesticide industry. We also understood the picket to be the latest in a dangerous pesticide industry mindgame.

Fresh vegetables grown in Poanta will now find their way to Gulf countries and metropolitan cities of India through Wal-Mart and Reliance chain of vegetable outlets. Himalaya Fresh, the brand that earlier signified frozen vegetables marketed by a Poanta-based entrepreneur, has now entered into a contract farming agreement with Poanta residents for vegetable production and its trading through international chains.

SOUMEN BHATTACHARJEE Street food has always been scrumptious. It will now be safe, too. The central government has chosen Bidhannagar Municipality to implement the first Safe Street Food programme in Bengal, with the focus on setting up vending zones where any hawker can do business as long as the food is hygienic. That could mean the neighbourhood puchkawalla having to use gloves and switch to mineral water, and the chicken, mutton and egg roll vendor using branded sauces instead of the toxic-looking ketchup customers are used to.

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Organised food retail culture is fast catching up in the city but Delhiites are not yet shifting their loyalties from mom-&-pop stores From a hawker's tindas, karelas and baigans, to packaged zucchini, broccoli and cherry tomatoes, the Indian consumer has come a long way. Organised retail and the steady mushrooming of hypermarkets, supermarkets and departmental stores in the country have roused the appetite of consumers looking for variety and economy.

Looking to ample possibilities in the food processing sector efforts are being made to increase the income of the farming community by effective coordination among industrialists, policy makers, technology experts and financial institutes. The state cabinet recently approved food processing policy. The first priority of the government is to encourage the industrialists and to give several concessions to them. This initiative of the government in this sector is welcome.

In what was described a "courtesy visit', Mr Anthony Salim, the Salim group chief spent more than an hour closeted in a meeting with Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister and Mr Nirupam Sen, state industries minister and senior officials at Writers' Buildings even as the city lay paralysed following a strike call by Trinamul Congress today. While Mr Salim declared that his group will go whichever way the state government asks with regard to its projects in the state, he also speculated the possibility of launching new projects in healthcare and food processing, reports said.