Ten days ago a well-informed reader in Kochi e-mailed a convincing case for banning endosulfan, an off-patent pesticide widely used by farmers round the country, on the reasoning that it played havoc with the lives and livelihoods of poor farm workers. But the reader did not stop with this; he said The Hindu had not given the issue the attention it warranted. This led me to a qualitative study of...
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Congress plans package for Endosulfan victims
To restore the lost pride in the endosulfan issue, the Congress is planning to come up with a comprehensive rehabilitation package for the Endosulfan victims of Kasargod when the UDF comes to power. The top leadership of the party in the state is of the view that the Stockholm Convention and the Central Government’s stand on the issue did not give due importance to the rehabilitation package and also into the...
More »The big endosulfan betrayal by Jay Kumar
We hear that endosulfan is banned globally and it is against Indian interests and that the European Union and the corporates are behind it. India is a big country and we do not know what happens in one area of the country or how New Delhi is responding to that. So let me try to walk you on this issue. I went to Kasargod as team member of Thanal, a...
More »Pesticide Endosulfan to Be Banned Worldwide
Representatives from 127 governments have agreed to add endosulfan to the United Nations' list of persistent organic pollutants to be eliminated worldwide. The action puts the widely-used pesticide on track for elimination from the global market by 2012. The decision was among more than 30 measures taken by Parties to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants to strengthen global action against POPs at their meeting in Geneva last week. The...
More »Pesticide will go-eventually by Raja Murthy
The lush green Indian state of Kerala, advertised in travel brochures as "God’s Own Country", is at the center of a continuing battle in the country to secure an early ban on the use of the pesticide endosulfan. The Kerala government and activists say the pesticide has caused 4,000 victims in the state, through cancer, crippled limbs and babies born with deformities; 496 related deaths have been officially recorded. No scientist,...
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