Ban Endosulfan-the killer pesticide

       The Union agriculture ministry has asserted that forbidding the use and manufacture of endosulfan will not be viable because there is no scientific evidence to prove its harmful effect on human health. The decision comes less than a week ahead of the Conference of Parties to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which is considering a global ban on the controversial organochlorine insecticide.

       On Tuesday, the agriculture ministry expressed its inability to clamp down on the pesticide to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) at a highlevel meeting. The NHRC had recommended its ban in December 2010.

       The pesticide is constantly in use in various states, but in the Northern parts of Kerala it is sprayed aerially and is found to cause various health issues, the most serious ones being cancer and autism. Thus, this pesticide is banned in Karnataka and Kerala. It has also been out of use in 73 countries, including New Zeland, Korea, Australia, Korea, Japan and the US.

        "The Union government claimed that there is no scientific basis for the action recommended by the experts of the Stockholm Convention or for the ban already imposed by other nations. The commission is at a loss to understand the logic of this stand. The countries that have banned endosulfan are those that have access to the most advanced scientific research," the NHRC had said in its recommendations earlier. The agriculture secretary told the NHRC at the meeting that in certain parts of the country, the pesticide may not have been used according to directions.