KATTAPPANA: Even as the Stockholm convention of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee on Tuesday proposed a ban on the use of the deadly Endosulfan pesticide, it is revealed that a large number of farmers in Idukki have stepped up its use in cardamom plantations.

Unmindful of the ban on Endosulfan imposed by the Kerala High Court in 2002, the cardamom planters are using Endosulfan

Silver Jubilee year will mark a series of programmes
Institute's graduation day will be held on September 30

Health Minister to inaugurate the Silver Jubilee Medical Exhibition

The introduction of Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) system will now help the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) to monitor the concentration level of organic pollutants in the environment in better way.
The GC-MS system funded by the State government (Rs 44.57 lakh) was inaugurated on Monday at the hands of Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira.

A new focus on the impact of farming on climate change could both curb carbon emissions and prod efforts to boost yields and rural incomes in developing countries, delegates told a U.N. climate conference.

Chemicals producers and governments agreed on Friday to step up efforts to push for greater safety in chemicals from lead in paint to microscopic substances.

But non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said unless the industry and governments come up with more money, agreed targets for cleaning up chemicals by 2020 were unlikely to be met.

A thaw of the Arctic linked to global warming may slow a drive to get rid of industrial chemicals that are harming indigenous people and wildlife, an expert said on Monday.

Experts and officials from some 150 countries started talks on Monday on banning production of nine chemicals considered potentially dangerous but still used in farming and for other commercial purposes.

In an effort to reduce the production and use of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) pesticides from polluting the atmosphere and harming human lives, India has initiated a National Implementation Plan. Being a signatory to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, a national plan sensitising different stakeholders about the obligations of India as a party to the convention and to develop strategies and action plans for the reduction and elimina tion of the target chemicals. The Stockholm Convention has come into force in India in 2006.

New York: Women exposed to high levels of certain kinds of pollutants are less likely to give birth to male children. That's the startling finding of a new study that reviewed data on pregnant women in San Francisco who were exposed to high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of banned environmental pollutants, in the 1950s and 1960s. And it's not an isolated finding either, reports ScienceDaily. Similar exposure is thought to have occurred in Wales, after a quarry on the edge of Groesfaen village near Cardiff was used as a toxic dumping ground from 1965 to 1972.

Pages