It is election time in Punjab. Every body has started talking about development. The word Development has become a major issue. Election manifestos are painting a rosy picture of a Developed Punjab. But, none of them is kind enough to tell what will be cost of this development? And who has to bear the cost? Who will be sacrificed for this? More over how sustainable will be this development?

This report examines pesticide use in Kuttanad, India, an economically sensitive area often referred to as the rice bowl of Kerala. Using primary data collected from pesticide applicators and farm labor, the report assesses short-term health costs associated with pesticide exposure.

Geographic Information System (GIS) was utilized to apply a modified DRASTIC method to assess the aquifer vulnerability to pollution of English Bazar Block of Malda District, West Bengal, India. In the western, central and southern parts of the study area the aquifer is prone to contamination. Therefore, in these regions pesticides, which may contain arsenic or arsenic rich groundwater, should not be used in irrigated land or mango orchards. In order to understand the reliability of the aquifer vulnerability, sensitivity analysis was carried out.

This study examines pesticide use in Kuttanad, India an ecologically sensitive area often referred to as the rice bowl of Kerala. Using primary data collected from pesticide applicators and farm labor, the study assesses short-term health costs associated with pesticide exposure.

Pesticides, common environmental exposures, have been examined in relation to breast cancer primarily in occupational studies or exposure biomarker studies. No known studies have focused on self-reported residential pesticide use. The authors investigated the association between reported lifetime residential pesticide use and breast cancer risk among women living on Long Island, New York.

In the present investigation, an attempt has been made to study the genotoxic effect of commonly used pesticides of South India, like 2,4-D, lindane, sevin and phosphamidon, in the human lymphocytes by comet assay and chromosomal analysis.

Since the 1960s, the world's population has more than doubled and agricultural production per person has increased by a third. Yet this growth in production has masked enormous hidden costs arising from widespread pesticide use - massive ecological damage and high incidences of farmer poisoning and chronic health effects.

The authors examined the association between pesticide use and breast cancer incidence among farmers’ wives in a large prospective cohort study in Iowa and North Carolina. Participants were 30,454 women with no history of breast cancer prior to cohort enrollment in 1993–1997. Information on pesticide use and other information was obtained by self-administered questionnaire at enrollment from the women and their husbands. Through 2000, 309 incident breast cancer cases were identified via population-based cancer registries.

A field experiment conducted at the College of Agriculture, CSKHPKV, Palampur, H.P. during 1999-2000 revealed that the synthetic pyrethroid treatments viz., deltamethrin, cypermethrin and fenvalerate gave significantly less fruit infestation of cucurbit fruit fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae Coq. upto 14 days of spray on summer squash compared to malathion.

Fifty samples of honey collected from local markets of Portugal and Spain during year 2002 were analyzed for 42 organochlorine, carbamate, and organophosphorus pesticide residues.

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