Time to tell all: The Delhi High Court has issued notices to various departments and functionaries of the Union and Delhi governments on a public interest litigation seeking to ensure that manufacturers of tobacco and alcoholic products disclose the list of ingredients on product packets. Replies to the notices have to be filed by July 20, 2005, the next date of hearing in the case. The Centre says the requirement can be made mandatory for tobacco products' manufacturers under Section 7 of the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003. But the provision hasn't been notified. The court wanted to know why.

Newmont's in trouble: Indonesia's Supreme Court has declared legal the investigation carried out by the country's police against five officials of PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, a subsidiary of US mining giant Newmont, over allegations of causing heavy metal poisoning in the country's northeast. The verdict is a green signal for the trial in the US $528.1 million civil lawsuit to proceed. It overrules the December 2004 verdict of a south Jakarta district court that pronounced the investigation illegal (see Down To Earth,