logo
Morning Brief Podcast: Health Hazards in your Grocery Bag

Morning Brief Podcast: Health Hazards in your Grocery Bag

Economic Times2 days ago

Morning Brief Podcast (ET Bureau)
Health Hazards in your Grocery Bag
Ratna Bhushan | 21:48 Min | June 10, 2025, 7:13 AM IST
LISTEN
21:48
LISTENING...
"A bottle of mango lassi, neatly sealed and within its expiry date, erupts like a shaken soda—over-fermented and undrinkable. Delivered in 10 minutes from a quick commerce dark store, it should've been safe. But it wasn't. And it isn't an isolated case. As India's quick commerce boom races ahead with 10-minute deliveries, dark stores—those invisible micro-warehouses powering your convenience—are quietly falling short on food safety. From broken packaging and stale bread to near-expiry edible oils and infestations, hygiene violations are slipping through the cracks. With fragmented regulations and overstretched operations, are we walking blind into a public health risk? Host Anirban Chowdhury speaks to ET's Ratna Bhushan and Dr Arun Gupta, convenor, Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest, about the systemic hygiene failures inside dark stores, the medical risks of spoiled food, and whether consumer convenience is quietly compromising our safety.Tune in

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Morning Brief Podcast: Health Hazards in your Grocery Bag
Morning Brief Podcast: Health Hazards in your Grocery Bag

Economic Times

time2 days ago

  • Economic Times

Morning Brief Podcast: Health Hazards in your Grocery Bag

Morning Brief Podcast (ET Bureau) Health Hazards in your Grocery Bag Ratna Bhushan | 21:48 Min | June 10, 2025, 7:13 AM IST LISTEN 21:48 LISTENING... "A bottle of mango lassi, neatly sealed and within its expiry date, erupts like a shaken soda—over-fermented and undrinkable. Delivered in 10 minutes from a quick commerce dark store, it should've been safe. But it wasn't. And it isn't an isolated case. As India's quick commerce boom races ahead with 10-minute deliveries, dark stores—those invisible micro-warehouses powering your convenience—are quietly falling short on food safety. From broken packaging and stale bread to near-expiry edible oils and infestations, hygiene violations are slipping through the cracks. With fragmented regulations and overstretched operations, are we walking blind into a public health risk? Host Anirban Chowdhury speaks to ET's Ratna Bhushan and Dr Arun Gupta, convenor, Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest, about the systemic hygiene failures inside dark stores, the medical risks of spoiled food, and whether consumer convenience is quietly compromising our in

VC company HealthKois plans $400 million fund for healthcare play
VC company HealthKois plans $400 million fund for healthcare play

Time of India

time6 days ago

  • Time of India

VC company HealthKois plans $400 million fund for healthcare play

HealthKois , a Delhi-based growth stage venture capital fund, plans to roll out a $400-million fund to invest in India's healthcare sector. The fund intends to target companies in AI-led healthtech , medtech, biopharma, healthcare delivery and climate health , its managing partner Charles Janssen told ET in an exclusive interaction. "We have started raising this fund from LPs (limited partners). Our LPs are split between Asia, Europe, and the US," Janssen said. HealthKois is aiming at a first close at the end of this year or early 2026. The investments will be deployed over the next four years, with ticket size of each of the investments likely in the range of $7 million to $25 million. "We are looking at a $300 million fund with a green shoe option of another $100 million," said Ajay Mahipal, partner at HealthKois. "We are looking at 13-16 portfolio companies in the HealthKois fund," he said. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Top 25 Most Beautiful Women In The World Car Novels Undo HealthKois is a successor fund to HealthQuad I and II, which are invested in GoApptiv, and Cureskin, among others. It plans to deploy 50% of its investment towards healthtech, and about 10-15% each across biopharma, medtech, healthcare delivery and climate health. "The idea is to back early growth, Indian healthcare companies that use tech or innovative business models to address critical challenges in the healthcare system and solve for affordability, accessibility, and quality of care," Mahipal said. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories

Cities have failing infra and poor crowd management SOPs say Urban planners
Cities have failing infra and poor crowd management SOPs say Urban planners

Economic Times

time04-06-2025

  • Economic Times

Cities have failing infra and poor crowd management SOPs say Urban planners

An evening of celebration for RCB turned into a tragedy at Bengaluru's M Chinnaswamy Stadium, where a stampede claimed 11 lives, highlighting the cracks in the city's civic planning and crowd control systems. Citizens and experts alike have questioned the government's preparedness and the promise of 'Brand Bengaluru' to handle large gatherings, especially at high-footfall venues. Urban planners told ET that not just Bengaluru, but many civic agencies in Indian cities fail to have robust standing operating procedures (SOPs) for crowd management. 'We tend to employ very ad hoc measures to manage crowds, poor fencing, lack of proper pathways, poor lighting and lack of emergency services,' said Ujjvala Krishna, urban researcher at WELL labs. She added that there is a clear lack of foresight in building long-term infrastructure that anticipates such scale.'Bengaluru doesn't have an active master plan. The Regional and Metropolitan Area Master Plan for 2031 is still a draft. It's more like a reference. Other major metros like Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai have active master plans,' Krishna said. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which makes rules for handling disasters in India, released a guide in 2014 to help state governments, local bodies, event organisers, and police manage large crowds safely. The guideline titled 'Managing Crowd at Events and Venues of Mass Gathering' suggests that before any big event, authorities should do a Rapid Venue Assessment to check preparedness. This includes an 11-point checklist evaluating aspects such as disaster preparedness, stakeholder coordination, crowd flow, safety, emergency response, ability to manage complexity, and potential for crowd growth, all rated on a scale from poor to best in urban planner from Bengaluru with over 30 years of experience in architecture and urban design said civic bodies are supposed to have SOPs. 'It's a combination problems of law and order, traffic management, and civic bodies. I don't think they have individual SOPs or even a common one,' he said, suggesting that such celebrations can be delayed by a day or two and organised with proper planning. The NDMA has also issued Guidelines on the Incident Response System (IRS), to ensure that there is a structured and coordinated emergency response. The guideline emphasises the need to encourage research on crowd behaviour and psychology to better inform planning and risk mitigation at mass urban planner said mismanagement of crowds is not an isolated incident. 'We've had enough of these events to actually learn from them. The answer lies in capacitating our governance systems to deliver better,' the expert said, requesting is not the first time a stampede has claimed lives. Earlier this year on February 15, a stampede at the New Delhi Railway Station resulted in 18 people losing their lives. During Maha Kumbh in Prayaraj on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya, where lakhs arrived to take a holy dip at the Sangam, 30 died and over 60 were injured despite advisories and emergency policy advisors also highlighted that cities continue to build for lower capacity than needed. They pointed out that metro cities have inadequate road infrastructure, pavements barely exist, and public mobility services are congested and worn down.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store