india

Victims of Kodaikanal Mercury Poisoning Protest Unilever

- Adam Clare

One of the worst disasters in India since the Bhopal incident, the Kodaikanal mercury poisoning continues to cause harm. Obviously this is not a good thing. What is good is that activists in the area are using every tool at their disposal to raise awareness and call for a boycott against Unilever.

Key demands of the campaign
The Governments of India and Tamil Nadu should ensure that Unilever

  • Cleans up the mercury contaminated factory site and surroundings to international standards that are adequate to protect the sensitive watershed forests of Pambar Shola.
  • Pays for long-term environmental monitoring for mercury buildup in the food chain in the forests and aquatic ecosystems in and around the factory
  • Provides adequate financial compensation to workers and arranges for long-term medical treatment, monitoring and rehabilitation for workers and their families.
  • Provide avenues for economic rehabilitation of the workers and their families.
  • Prosecute Unilever and its officials for their criminal negligence in Kodaikanal.

Read more.

Tiger Population Recovering in India

- Adam Clare

The Indian tiger population suffered great losses in the last 100 years. Tigers were killed for the bizarre perception that their body parts could help people have sex. This caused a major population collapse for tigers.

Now it looks like the tigers are making a come back!

The number of tigers in India has seen a sharp rise to 2,226 tigers from 1,411 seven years ago, the environment ministry has said.

“India is now home to 70 per cent of the world’s tigers,” Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday.

Karnataka has the most number of tigers at 406. Uttarakhand has 340 tigers, Tamil Nadu has 229, Madhya Pradesh has 208, Maharashtra has 190 and the Sundarbans in Bengal has 76 tigers.

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A GM & Pesticide Free Rice Growing Revolution

- Adam Clare

Rice farmers have been growing their crop in the same way for hundreds of years and most people have assumed the most efficient way to grow rice has been figured out. That is until some farmers in India decided to change how they grow their bounty and now scientists have take note of their success.

What happened in Darveshpura has divided scientists and is exciting governments and development experts. Tests on the soil show it is particularly rich in silicon but the reason for the “super yields” is entirely down to a method of growing crops called System of Rice (or root) Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world’s 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them.

Instead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings in clumps of three or four in waterlogged fields, as rice farmers around the world traditionally do, the Darveshpura farmers carefully nurture only half as many seeds, and then transplant the young plants into fields, one by one, when much younger. Additionally, they space them at 25cm intervals in a grid pattern, keep the soil much drier and carefully weed around the plants to allow air to their roots. The premise that “less is more” was taught by Rajiv Kumar, a young Bihar state government extension worker who had been trained in turn by Anil Verma of a small Indian NGO called Pran (Preservation and
Proliferation of Rural Resources and Nature), which has introduced the SRI method to hundreds of villages in the past three years.

Read more here.

India Bans Shark Finning

- Adam Clare

Chinese demand for the fins of sharks (I have no idea what they are good for) has gone up over the past couple years. India is one of the largest exports of shark parts to China and the Indian government has decided to ban the act of removing fins from sharks.

Worldwide, sharks are in sharp decline, with some species’ numbers now 10 per cent of what they were three decades ago. Their demise threatens the health of ocean ecosystems, experts say, as the top predators are key to keeping fish and turtle populations in check. Tens of millions are caught every year.
…
Conservationists applauded the ministry’s move as key to ending a cruel practice threatening to push some shark populations to the brink.

“Given the perilous status of many shark species, we urge the state governments to act quickly and work to enforce the policy,” said Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

More at the CBC.

India’s Supreme Court Paves the Way for Cheaper Pharmaceuticals

- Adam Clare

India continues to pave the way for providing cheaper generic drugs for its citizens compared to other nations which have a heavy patent system. Previously India has produced drugs for 97% less than ‘normal’ costs as well as committing to the development of generic drugs. Looking out for their citizen’s wellbeing has got them in trouble with a Swiss pharmaceutical company though.

The company took the government to court and after seven years of legal battles the court sided with the government’s goal of providing affordable health care.

Healthcare activists have called on the government to make medicines cheaper in a country where many patented drugs are too costly for most people, 40 percent of whom earn less than $1.25 a day, and where patented drugs account for under 10 percent of total drug sales.

“This appears to be the best outcome for patients in developing countries as fewer patents will be granted on existing medicines,” said Leena Menghaney, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ Access Campaign manager for India.

Over 16,000 patients in India use Glivec, the vast majority of whom receive it free of charge, Novartis says. By contrast, generic Glivec is used by more than 300,000 patients, according to industry reports.

“It’s a victory for patients who take these medicines and also for the government,” said M. Adinarayana, company secretary at Natco Pharma.

Read more here.

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