UDF claims food poisoning incidents on rise due to 'incompetence' of Kerala govt
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): The Congress-led UDF opposition on Wednesday alleged in the Kerala assembly that the 'incompetence and mismanagement' of the Left government was the reason for the food poisoning related deaths in the state.
Calling attention to the spate of food poisoning incidents in the state, the opposition claimed that recent events indicate that the LDF government has completely failed to implement the Food Safety Act.
The allegations were refuted by the state government with Health Minister Veena George contending that since the LDF government came to power in 2016, the number of inspections has increased manifold.
She said over 50,000 inspections were carried out last year alone and the state government has now brought in stringent measures, like the 'Health Card' for employees of eateries certifying they are healthy and free of contagious diseases.
Health cards would be mandatory from February 16 onwards and besides that, the state government has banned -- effective from February 1 -- the sale of food items without the "best before label", she said in the House in response to the issue raised by senior Congress leader and MLA Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan.
Radhakrishnan claimed in the House that the Food Safety and Health departments instead of working in a coordinated manner, are going their separate ways to deal with the issue.
He also claimed that Kerala was number one in the country in food safety during the UDF rule and in 2022 it had slipped to the 6th position.
"There have been a lot of deaths. The mismanagement and incompetence of Food Safety department are the reason for this. Even the public see that."
The Congress MLA alleged that adulterated dairy products, like milk, and expired or rotten meat were freely entering Kerala from other states, which indicated a lack of checking at the borders.
Moreover, with only three NABL accredited labs in the state, testing of collected samples gets delayed and proper results are not received, leading to the accused persons going scot free.
He further claimed that thousands of cases related to violation of food safety norms were pending in courts and delay in test results due to lack of sufficient labs were also resulting in the accused getting away without any punishment.
George acknowledged the prosecution related concern raised by the senior Congress leader and said that it has been decided to appoint a dedicated law officer in the Food Safety Commissioner's office to address that issue.
She also said that implementing the Food Safety Act was a priority of the government for which it has recruited more officials, created a Special Task Force and was going to bring in a system for online monitoring of the complaints, action taken, etc.
The minister said that when the next survey is conducted by the Centre, Kerala would surely be at the number one spot in food safety.
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Sensex, Nifty fall for 2nd day on selling in Axis Bank, Indo-Pak border tensions
Mumbai, Apr 25 (PTI): Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty declined sharply on Friday due to selling in Axis Bank and growing tensions along the Indo-Pak border following the terror attack at Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir.
Wiping out early gains, the 30-share BSE barometer tanked 588.90 points or 0.74 per cent to settle at 79,212.53. During the day, it dropped 1,195.62 points or 1.49 per cent to 78,605.81.
Falling for the second day, the NSE Nifty tumbled 207.35 points or 0.86 per cent to 24,039.35.
Experts said worries over growing geopolitical tensions after Tuesday's Pahalgam terror attack weighed on market sentiment.
All sectoral indices except for IT index closed in the red while midcap and smallcap indices dropped more than 2 per cent due to profit taking.
"Investor sentiment turned cautious amid escalating tensions along the Indo-Pak border. Mid and smallcap stocks bore the brunt of the sell-off, driven by their elevated valuations and growing concerns over potential earnings downgrades following a muted start to the earnings season," Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Investments Limited, said.
Among Sensex shares, Adani Ports, Axis Bank, Eternal, Bajaj Finserv, Power Grid, Maruti, Bajaj Finance, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and NTPC were the biggest laggards.
Axis Bank declined over 3 per cent after the country's third largest private sector lender reported a sharp rise in loan loss provisions and a steep fall in the trading income for the last quarter of 2024-25. The bank's profit declined marginally in the March quarter to Rs 7,117 crore, from Rs 7,130 crore in the year-ago period.
However, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, IndusInd Bank, Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank were the gainers.
Despite Nifty opening at a higher level on Friday, geopolitical tensions with the neighbouring nation have led to the drop in the index, Ajay Garg, CEO, SMC Global Securities, said.
"In the last few days, Nifty has also revived to 24,000 points with FII buying, banking stocks rally, and expectations of a positive outcome from the US-India trade talks. Along with the geopolitical tensions, profit-booking by investors also added to today’s market drop," Garg added.
"The heightened geopolitical uncertainty has led investors to adopt a risk-off approach, triggering profit-booking after the recent sharp rally. Furthermore, the markets appeared slightly overstretched following the vertical rise, prompting traders to reduce exposure," Ajit Mishra – SVP, Research, Religare Broking Ltd, said.
The BSE smallcap gauge tanked 2.56 per cent and midcap dropped 2.44 per cent.
Among BSE sectoral indices, services dropped 3.11 per cent, utilities (2.96 per cent), realty (2.87 per cent), power (2.77 per cent), consumer discretionary (2.28 per cent), industrials (2.19 per cent) and capital goods (2.06 per cent).
IT and BSE Focused IT ended higher.
As many as 3,246 stocks declined while 719 advanced and 119 remained unchanged on the BSE.
In Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi index, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng settled in the positive territory. Shanghai SSE Composite ended marginally lower.
Markets in Europe were trading higher.
US markets ended significantly higher on Thursday. Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.74 per cent, S&P 500 surged 2.03 per cent and Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.23 per cent.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 8,250.53 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.50 per cent to USD 66.24 a barrel.
On Thursday, the 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex declined 315.06 points or 0.39 per cent to settle at 79,801.43 on Thursday. The Nifty went down by 82.25 points or 0.34 per cent to 24,246.70.
