India’s Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has refused to ban Endosulfan, a chemical used widely in India as an insecticide. He blamed farmers for the disastrous effects of this pesticide on people. For instance, Kasargod district of Kerala had reported deaths and permanent disabilities due to the use of this chemical. Pawar said the culprits were the farmers who were spraying the pesticide on the cashew crop against the advice of the Pesticide...

In an address to the Berlin Agriculture Ministers meeting last month, World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy said export restrictions are a prime cause of recent surges in global food prices, and countries should find other ways of securing domestic supplies (“WTO chief: Alternatives to food export curbs needed”, Business Standard, January 23). Though export restrictions are an important contributor to rising food prices, they are by no...

Granting autonomy to tribals in the Northeast has removed their feeling of alienation to a great extent but still a lot needs to be done, Union home secretary Gopal K Pillai said today. Releasing a book - 'Tripura's Bravehearts', Pillai said setting up of autonomous district councils for tribal communities in the Northeast, particularly in Tripura, under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution helped solve many problems. "The feeling that their lands...

Activists hope that a popular agitation against the setting up of a factory to manufacture asbestos products in the eastern Bihar state will result in a nationwide ban on the large-scale import into this country of the deadly mineral fibre. Following six months of agitation against the setting up of the factory in the Chainpur-Bishunpur area of Bihar’s Muzzaffarpur district, state chief minister Nitish Kumar sought to lay blame on the...

PMFAI claims imported substitutes will cost the Indian farmers dearly Chemicals are the world's second largest traded commodity ‘India has a 70% market share of endosulfan business globally' The Pesticides Manufacturers and Formulators' Association of India (PMFAI), on the radar of some environmentalists and business lobbies, on Friday demanded the Central government to withdraw the “erroneous” report of the Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) declaring endosulfan as a health hazard. Describing the...