-The Hindu Haryana professor writes to Union, State agriculture Ministers reharding issue Gurugram: Prof. Rajinder Chaudhary, Advisor, Kudarti Kheti Abhiyan, Haryana has expressed disappointment over the fact that despite the known side-effects of aerial spraying of pesticides, the government’s locust control policy was focussed only on chemical spray. He said they completly ignored non-chemical measures. In a letter to the agriculture Ministers and agriculture secretaries of the Centre and Haryana, Prof. Chaudhary said a...

-Down to Earth Pesticide consumption in India grew by 13.07 per cent in India between 2014-15 and 2017-18 Maharashtra consumed the most chemical pesticides in India in the past five years at 61,138 tonnes, followed by Uttar Pradesh (UP) at 52,747 tonnes and Punjab at 29,394 tonnes, according to non-profit Pesticide Action Network (PAN). Maharashtra increased its pesticide consumption by 35.6 per cent between 2014-15 and 2018-19, while UP reported an increase of...

-PTI/ The Hindu ‘The police can take action including registration of FIRs’ The Delhi High Court has been told by the AAP government that under the penal law, food adulteration is a cognisable offence against which the police can take action, including registration of FIRs. The submission was made before a Bench of Justices G.S. Sistani and A.J. Bhambhani which had earlier said that the use of pesticides and chemicals to ripen fruits...

-The Hindu For the first time in India, a whole region has recorded the presence of pesticides and PAH in its natural sources of water and surface sediments Kolkata: Groundwater as well as river water in the western Bengal basin has high concentrations of pesticides and toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a study authored by a group of scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur has revealed. The researchers tested hundreds...

-Down to Earth This is because agriculture in India is largely dependent on chemicals including pesticides and their usage has a huge impact on the health of humans, animals, bio-diversity and the environment Pesticides are regulated in India through the Insecticides Act, 1968 and Insecticides Rules, 1971. The experience in administering this Act over the last five decades has exposed certain gaps which spurred the need to propose a new law. The Pesticide...