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...
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Pesticide placed on UN list of hazardous chemicals to be eliminated
An insecticide widely used in agriculture for pest control has become the latest hazardous chemical to be added to the United Nations’ list of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) targeted for elimination from the global market by next year, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today. Representatives from 127 governments meeting in Geneva from 25 to 29 April agreed to add endosulfan, an organochlorine insecticide, to the POPs list because it is...
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The United Nations is predicting that come Oct. 31, the world population will hit the seven billion mark - and keep expanding till it reaches 9.3 billion by the year 2050. Much of this increase, according to the Population Division of the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), is projected to come from 58 high-fertility countries: 39 in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin...
More »Wheat a high
India is growing more wheat than it ever was. While other leading wheat producing countries like China and US are witnessing a decline in output, the country has stood as an exception with an estimated record production of 84.27 million tonnes of the staple foodgrain this year. Russia, Canada and Australia, too, are witnessing a downturn. “India is gaining internationally in the wheat production,” S S Singh, Project Director of Directorate of Wheat...
More »The deception at the heart of ‘Rising India' by Pankaj Mishra
From the Prime Minister down, WikiLeaks has exposed the rotten state of the world's largest democracy for all to see. Food prices become intolerable for the poor. Protests against corruption paralyse Parliament. Then a series of American diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks exposes a brazenly mendacious and venal ruling class; the head of government adored by foreign business people and journalists loses his moral authority, turning into a lame duck. This...
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