Union Minister K V Thomas’ pro-endosulfan speech is just a tip of the iceberg. It shows a smaller part of the Union Government’s policy of making profit by gambling the lives of common people. A Government of India enterprise itself is producing endosulfan in Kerala for the past three decades though it is not known much to others. The Government’s indifferent attitude towards the endosulfan-hit State is reflected in the factory standing...

Union Minister of State for Agriculture K.V. Thomas' remarks here on Monday that an expert enquiry committee had not attributed any death from mysterious illnesses here to the aerial spraying of endosulfan on the cashew estates of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala had invited widespread resentment here with Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) workers burning him in effigy. Anti-endosulfan Campaign Committee chairman Narayanan Periya decried the Minister's statement saying that...

India has opposed ban on the pesticide at Geneva meet, Forest Minister says India should not have become a ‘spokesman' of the pesticides lobby. Forest Minister Benoy Viswom has criticised the stand taken by India against global ban on endosulfan at the sixth meeting of Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee to the Stockholm Convention at Geneva last week. “India's stand was not right. The general consensus at the meeting was in favour...

Governments here and abroad are watching India's stand on endosulfan at the sixth meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants' Review Committee (POPRC) of the Stockholm Convention that began in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday. While most of the governments represented at the Stockholm Convention are taking stands in favour of a global ban on endosulfan, India is opposing it. The Kerala government has demanded a ban on the pesticide with Chief Minister...

Even as recent media reports caution that most fruits and vegetables are largely unfit for human consumption due to their high chemical content, pesticides continue to be used recklessly in the fields of Punjab. The ‘Granary of India’ constitutes 2.5 per cent of the total agricultural land in India, but consumes more than 18 per cent of the total pesticides used in India. Within the state the worst affected is the southwestern...