Kozhikode, Wednesday 10 November 2010: Socialist Janata (Democratic) president M P Veerendra Kumar appealed to the Centre to ban forever the use of Endosulfan pesticide in India.

In a letter addressed to the Union Agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar, released here, Veerendra Kumar said ‘I appeal to your sense of compassion to take the right decision and ban forever the use of Endosulfan in India, in tune with the 60 odd nations, which have voluntarily enforced it’.

‘This may sound like a pious wish given the shameful stand our country took in the recently concluded United Nations meeting in Geneva, where scientists voted to draw up a risk management evaluation for Endosulfan, before effecting a global ban under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) treaty’, he said.

Pointing that the letter was written on the eve of Diwali, the festival of lights, he said ‘unfortunately there is no such joy in 11 villages of Kasaragod, in north Kerala, where life itself has been blighted’.

Veerendra Kumar termed the recent statement of Union Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas at Kasaragod that an expert enquiry committee had not attributed any death from mysterious illnesses here to the aerial spraying of Endosulfan as ‘quite unfortunate’.
Thomas should not have said this for studies have proved otherwise, Veerendra Kumar said.

(News agency)