In May when Kerala banned seven highly toxic insecticides so that it switches to safer chemicals, it did not fare better. It ended up replacing them with six others, banned or severely restricted in most parts of the world. For instance, it replaced carbofuran, a pesticide that affects the nervous …
THE Supreme Court has turned down the request of pesticide manufacturers to allow them to export the pesticide stocks in India. The court had banned the sale, manufacture, use and export of the pesticide on May 13 on a petition by the youth wing of the CPI(M), the Democratic Youth …
UNION agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is rooting for endosulfan just before the fifth Conference of Parties (COP) of the Stockholm Convention meets in Geneva in April-end 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 …
Endosulfan poisoning in Kasaragod district has made the Kerala government cautious in its approach to use of pesticides. Agriculture minister M Retnakaran recently announced that the ban on extremely and moderately hazardous pesticides in Kasaragod will be extended to Idukki district. The news augurs well for Idukki, known for its …
THE country’s regulators have failed to check the flow of pesticides into the food chain, suggests a monitoring report of the Department of Agriculture and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, the country’s premier institute. Fruits, vegetables, poultry and milk are all laced with high pesticide residues —much above the maximum …
In response to calls for more direct measurements of pesticide residues in foods consumed by children, and to compare direct measures of pesticide residues in foods representing actual consumption with those reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program, Lu et al. measured pesticide residues in 239 24-hr …
The journey of honey from bee farms to breakfast tables has become complex with time. From wild honey gatherers, honey supply has passed into the hands of cooperatives of individual beekeepers and then to big companies. The cooperatives could have helped beekeepers demand better prices, but they did not last …
Tango with nature India has been using lakes, ponds and baolis (step wells) since ancient times ('What monsoon means', July 16-31, 2010). Delhi was once replete with water bodies. In the past 50 years, government agencies started disbanding natural ponds, lakes and baolis, declaring their water untested, and therefore, unfit …
For more than 25 years, the Union Carbide (UCIL) factory has been contaminating the land and water of Bhopal. Latest tests show that groundwater in areas even three km away from the factory contains almost 40 times more pesticides than Indian standards.
California sea lions have a large body burden of organochlorine pesticides, and over the last decade they have also been subject to domoic acid poisoning. Domoic acid poisoning, previously recognized in adult animals, is now viewed as a major cause of prenatal mortality. The appearance of a chronic juvenile domoic …
The incidence of presence of pesticides and heavy metals in the leafy vegetables has gained significance. The present study was carried out to study the effect of indicriminate use of common insecticides on the essential catabolic activity of some vegetables.
Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, is blessed with rivers. But what's the use? Each and every river and canal is filled with poisonous muck which seeps into groundwater. The Janhit Foundation in Meerut has carried out several studies which show that Uttar Pradesh's groundwater is loaded with dangerous carcinogenic chemicals. …
