Sharad Pawar says many states had asked him not to ban the pesticide Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is rooting for endosulfan just before the fifth Conference of Parties (COP) of the Stockholm Convention meets in Geneva from April 25 to April 30 to decide the fate of the pesticide. There seems to be a pattern in Pawar’s resistance to banning endosulfan. Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha on February...

Census data released on Thursday has brought some cheer with the revelation that the population growth has finally slowed down in India. Yet, it also pointed towards an alarming fact that the sex ratio in the age group between 0-6 has fallen. Even though, the people claim that they no longer differentiate between male and female offspring, doctors have a sorry tale to narrate. Homemaker, Sangita Acharya said that her five-year-old daughter,...

The debate on genetically modified crops is gaining momentum again. However, this time, it seems the engineered food is losing ground to traditional crops. Eleven farmers from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu made a series of submissions explaining the havoc wrought by Bt cotton on their farms. Their main contention was that Bt cotton had not given them economic benefits. As a matter of fact, they had become poorer, their soils had...

Twice every year, between 1981 and 2000, a helicopter would whirr around the hills of the Western Ghats in Kasargod, a district in north Kerala bordering Karnataka, spraying endosulfan over the cashew plantations on the upper reaches. Children would rush out to take a look at the helicopter and the white spray would settle like mist on their heads and on leaves and shimmer in the sunlight. But that’s also...

Like Kerala’s Kasaragod, neighbouring Dakshina Kannada is bearing the brunt of spraying of endosulfan. While Kasaragod grabbed media spotlight and Kerala banned the pesticide, victims in Karnataka are still struggling for recognition. Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa in December announced that his government would consider banning endosulfan. The highly toxic pesticide is banned in over 70 countries. The assurance has come too late and is too little for the hundreds of...