Invitation: South Asian Media Briefing Workshop on Food Safety and Toxins

Centre for Science and Environment
New Delhi, India

Dates to be announced

Modern society and its lifestyles have become a favoured hunting ground for all kinds of deadly toxins.

Our food is contaminated with an astounding variety of toxic pesticides and additives. The medicines we ingest are rapidly losing their bite because of rampant overuse and misuse. And many products that we use – including children’s toys – are loaded with extremely harmful chemicals.

The problem is not endemic to one country. Almost the whole of South Asia, with its teeming populations, its food security imperatives and its lax regulatory controls, is plagued by it.

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has been working on toxins and safety of food products for several years. In 2003-06, it had campaigned on the issue of pesticide residues in soft drinks; in 2004, a media briefing on the subject was organised in New Delhi. In the years that followed, CSE’s laboratory and campaign teams have kept up the tempo by conducting tests and studies on a variety of products – honey, cooking oils, household paints, children’s toys, etc, to name a few.

CSE now invites you to attend its South Asian Media Briefing Workshop in New Delhi to share its understanding and knowledge of a range of issues under the broader subject of food safety and toxins -- pesticides and pesticide poisoning, genetically modified foods, regulations and regulatory capacity, and drugs of daily use. The two-day Workshop is expected to bring together the key scientists, experts and regulators working in these areas to brief journalists on one platform.

Participation procedure

  • Participation at the Workshop is open only to active journalists from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

  • There are only 75 seats for the Workshop. Interested journalists can apply through e-mail or fax on the format provided below to the undersigned.

  • There is no participation / registration fee. CSE offers to support the travel and accommodation of some of the selected participants. But to avail of this sponsorship opportunity, interested journalists must apply immediately.

  • Selection of the participants will be done by CSE. The cut-off date for receiving applications is February 28, 2011.

Along with these details, applicants are requested to send us copies of two recent published / broadcast articles or stories produced by them on subjects related to environment and development. The Workshop organisers might find it necessary to request journalists writing in languages other than Hindi or English, to also send very brief synopses (in English) of the articles being submitted.

Vrinda Nagar
Media Resource Centre
Centre for Science and Environment
41, Tughlaqabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-62, India
Land phones: 91-11-29956399, 29953394, 29951124
Phone No. : 9654106253
Email : vrinda.nagar@cseindia.org
Fax: 91-11-29955879