THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Agriculture Minister Mullakkara Ratnakaran wrote to Union Minister of Agriculture Sharad Pawar on Wednesday urging him to initiate urgent action to ban the manufacture and use of Endosulfan and its formulations under different trade names in the country and also to move the Stockholm Convention for a consensus to ban it world-wide. He spoke to The Hindu on his demand.
KASARAGOD: The district, where Endosulfan has wreaked havoc on lives in 11 panchayat areas, will witness massive agitations from Monday to mount pressure on the Union government to vote against the use of the deadly pesticide at the Conference of Parties to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in Geneva.
The district headquarters will see a series of agitations against the
Forest Minister Benoy Viswom has posed a few questions to the Union government with respect to its stand on the State's demand for banning the pesticide Endosulfan.
In a statement here on Sunday, he asked why, rejecting the unanimous plea of the people of Kerala, who had seen first-hand the human tragedy wreaked by the pesticide in the State, the Union government refused to ban it, accepting th
This committee report submitted to Gujarat Health Ministry has disfavoured ban on endosulfan production in the state saying there are no health effects on humans as a result of exposure to the insecticide. This committee was constituted following representation from endosulfan workers in Gujarat, who urged the state government not to act upon the report of the National Institute of Occupational Health which asserted there were health problems associated with endosulfan.
Alternative too may pose health problems
But most are not persistent in environment
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Several alternatives exist for Endosulfan in the country though those opposing its ban ignore that.
An expert committee of the Central government had listed alternatives to Endosulfan for 47 out of 55 pests affecting 29 crops in Orissa in 2008-09.
The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday observed that it was not right to make public comments on the endosulfan ban.
Four companies which have challenged the ban had contended that public comments were having an adverse effect. The court held that the matter was sub judice and nothing could be disclosed till the final verdict.
On Monday, when the four-day Stockholm convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants begins in Geneva, Kerala would observe Anti-endosulfan Day with government-sponsored programmes across the state.
