Exemption for its application against 44 pests in 22 crops The decision will not be binding on India unless specifically ratified by it Exemptions will be available for five years, extendable for another five years The Conference of Parties to the Stockholm Convention in Geneva on Friday approved the recommendation for elimination of production and use of Endosulfan and its isomers worldwide, subject to certain exemptions. The decision will not be binding on India...

A fortnight ago, Moin was beaten to death by his uncle who was the owner of the factory where the 10-year-old worked. Very few would have cared but for television, which brought the horrific images of his battered body into middle-class living rooms. But it’s doubtful if anybody would remember Moin’s tragedy once the TV cameras shift elsewhere. This has happened many times. Just a year ago, an engineer couple was...

Indian cardiologists have produced what they say is the first evidence to show that chewing Tobacco can constrict the blood vessels of the heart within minutes and possibly raise the risk of heart attacks. Their study on men who volunteered to chew a single gram of Tobacco while having their hearts monitored has revealed significant reductions in the diameters of coronary arteries within 10 minutes after they began chewing. The cardiologists from...

Health activists and non-government organisation working against Tobacco abuse, Health Related Information Dissemination Among Youth (HRIDAY), have written to Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, urging her to support the timely implementation of strong and effective pictorial health warnings on Tobacco product packages. “The current pictorial health warnings in India are extremely mild and ineffective to communicate the hazardous health effects of Tobacco use. Since the Department...

NEARLY 80 km from Pune is Ralegan Siddhi village with about 3,000 people. It would have been one among the hundreds of nondescript villages in Parner taluk of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, had it not been for Kisan Baburao Hazare, 71, better known as Anna, or older brother, a title that was appended to his name after he made the village more than just a dot on the map. Until he was...