US-based campaign body protests Coca-Cola tieup with Govt of India, says it will "promote" unhealthy products

By A Representative
India Resource Centre (IRC), an international campaigning organization based in US, has taken strong exception to the Government of India’s tieup with Coca-Cola for food safety and nutrition, calling it “misguided”, insisting that the multinational corporation (MNC) “will use the partnership to promote unhealthy products.”
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) – the country’s premier government organization responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety –announced on Tuesday that it has entered into a partnership with Coca-Cola India to provide training to vendors “in order to ensure safe and nutritious food for all.”
In a statement sent to Counterview, IRC said, “FSSAI’s partnership is misguided and antithetical to the food regulator’s mission, and must be scrapped”, adding, “FSSAI should not enter into partnerships with entities it is supposed to regulate because it ensures conflicts of interest.”
“It is now widely recognized around the world that the vast majority of Coca-Cola products are neither safe nor nutritious, and Coca-Cola is the least qualified company to provide input on food safety and healthy nutrition”, IRC said.
“Even as the FSSAI has announced the partnership, the parliament of India is slated to vote as early as this week on a measure that will introduce sin taxes on aerated beverages containing sugar – the bread and butter of Coca-Cola’s product portfolio”, regrets IRC.
“The proposal to subject such products to a sin tax – proposed by India’s Chief Economic Advisor – was done so because it is acknowledged that sugar sweetened beverages such as Coca-Cola, Maaza, Thums Up, Sprite, Fanta and the likes – cause more harm than good due to the excessive sugar content in these products”, it added.
“One 330 ml can or bottle of Sprite in India contains 10 teaspoons of sugar, or 40 grams of sugar according to Coca-Cola”, IRC said, adding, “The sugar content of just one can of Sprite exceeds the daily added sugar intake recommended by the American Heart Association, which recommends 6 teaspoons of added sugar for women and 9 teaspoons for men per day.”
Citing a group of public health professionals from around the world, the statement said, they signed a statement in support of the proposed sin tax in India, noting that “Taxing sugar-sweetened beverages in ways similar to tobacco is a positive step forward to protect the public health interests of all Indians.”
“The partnership between FSSAI and Coca-Cola is even more troubling because the existence of FSSAI came about as the result of a Joint Parliamentary Committee report confirming the presence of high levels of pesticides in Coca-Cola and other beverages in India – which were initially reported in 2003 by the Centre for Science and Environment”, IRC said.
“The investigation into the presence of high levels of pesticides in Coca-Cola and other beverages in India found a failure of the regulatory mechanism in India and the FSSAI was established to regulate food safety after the consolidation of various food safety laws in the country”, it added.
“The FSSAI has also been put in charge by the Delhi High Court to develop regulations to ban junk food in schools and a 50 meter radius – foods high in fat, sugar and salt – which includes Coca-Cola products”, the statement pointed out.

The court’s order of March 2015, meant “primarily to protect children’s health by removing access to harmful products like Coca-Cola”, after a “public interest litigation filed by the Delhi- based Uday Foundation which had sought an immediate ban on junk food and carbonated drinks in schools and a 500 yard radius”, the statement said.

Comments

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma* As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor* A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

Dalit woman student’s death sparks allegations of institutional neglect in Himachal college

By A Representative A Dalit rights organisation has alleged severe caste- and gender-based institutional violence leading to the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman student at Government Degree College, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, and has demanded arrests, resignations, and an independent inquiry into the case.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

The architect of Congolese liberation: The life and legacy of Patrice Lumumba

By Harsh Thakor* Patrice Émery Lumumba remains a central figure in the history of African decolonization, serving as the first Prime Minister of the independent Republic of the Congo. Born on July 2, 1925, Lumumba emerged as a radical anti-colonial leader who sought to unify a nation fractured by decades of Belgian rule. His tenure, however, lasted less than seven months before his dismissal and subsequent assassination on January 17, 1961.

Venezuela and the crisis of global order: Erosion of rules-based international order

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The American attack on Venezuela violates every principle of international law that the collective West claims to uphold. The response from the European Union—“we are monitoring the situation”—exposes the hollowness of these claims. WhatsApp gossipers may celebrate this as an act of “bravery,” but what kind of bravery is it to intimidate a neighbour that is neither large in size nor strong in military power?

Search This Blog