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This is Mallipalli, in Central Orissa.

 

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If everything seems neat and mannicured, at least from the sky, it is because it is.

 

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If everything seems neat and mannicured, at least from the sky, it is because it is.

 

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Well delimited fields,  weeds kept under control, mostly due to hard work in this acricultural hearth of India.

 

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But also, more often than not, thanks to a weedkiller.  Almost every home keeps a bottle on a shelf or in a corner.

 

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Devcharan kept in here, under a pile of wicks.

 

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My son wanted to study in Mumbai, he needed 8000 rupees. He thought he had found the money, but it fell through.

 

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The next day I came back tired from the fields, my son sat there, was not feeling well.

 

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He said nothing of what he had taken. He had blisters on his tongue.  

 

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He was only 18 years old.   

 

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Shiva had no intention to kill himself. In a moment of rage, he took a sip from the first poison he found - unlucily it was Paraquat, a powerful weedkiller

 

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The doctor said he had taken the Paraquat. I could not imagine something like this happened to my son. 

 

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We are doomed if kids keep dyeing like this!

 

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He was my light and life and now I am finished!

 

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Shiva ended up here, too late.

 

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We are at Burla hospital, the biggest in an area of the span of 300 kilometres where the seriously ingured 

 

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also those poisoned by Paraquat, often they reach after halts in several local health centres unequipped for treatment

 

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Inside we are going to see in which state lay public health structures in this country, be ready for a shock.

 

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Crowded corridors, nauseating smells, zero hygiene -

 

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Here works every day Dr Shankar  Ramchamdani, also know as “Doctor Paraquat”.

 

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Dozen patients wait for hours in his visiting room to receive 5 minutes of his attention. After the day care, the doctor moves to the wards

 

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Here there are the most ill patients. Today on bed n 145 there is Anand.

 

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Paraquat dyclorure is responsible of hundreds of deaths in India, mostly suicides, 100 a year only in the state of Orissa.

 

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Like Anand and Shiva, most victims act on a whim, have not planned suicide,  grabs the first poison available.

 

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The problem is that if it is bleach or rat poison, there is a cure, if it is another pesticide, there are antidotes, they can be saved..

 

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But if it is Paraquat, just a tea spoon and there is nothing tro do.

 

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I will not see him again. Anand died on November 17, of pulmonary fibrosis.  

 

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Doctor Shankar Ramchandani has taken this battle at heart.

 

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Twice he went on hunger strike. Together with other doctors in Orissa, they demand a ban on this weedkiller.  

 

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Over 50 countries have banned it, including China, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, but not in India, the world largest agriculture.

 

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The 5 october 2023 a first step, the state of Orissa has banned it but only for two months, as that is all a State can do.

 

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The ban was a surprise for the farmers in Orissa. 90% uses it because it has reduced manual work by a lot. 

 

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This union leader in Bhagar district says that the area suffers with the second highest number of cancers

 

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because the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides here is the highest in Asia 

 

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In this instance the farmers are divided in two: those who don’t want the ban, and those who understand it is necessary.

 

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In this district the suicide rate is very high. But before, they could be saved

 

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Since they are making use of Paraquat, 95% of the attempted suicides becomes certain death.

 

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Without training or education, shifting away from Paraquat is not easy.

 

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This group of farmers says they are not happy with the ban

 

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the labour is too expensive, they say,

 

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The ban is soon to expire, meanwhile the state of Orissa has actually sealed boxes in agro shops

 

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Syngenta, the Swiss based but now China owned agro giant, has invented Paraquat. They say they have stopped

 

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selling in India, by selling their trade mark Gramoxone to an Indian firm, Crystal Crops.

 

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This shop in Chandigarh has one bottle still

 

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The owner says they do not give any particular instructions and they sell it to anyone, even to non farmers, even to me.

 

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Punjab is the bread basket of India, produces half the cereals and the rice of the country

 

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but swallows 4 times the pesticides and other chemicals.

 

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Here too suicides are running high with the weedkiller that leaves no hope.

 

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Everythimg is so green and lush here, it seems very beautiful

 

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Dr Hargupratap Singh wants a ban in Punjab like in Orissa and to send a strong signal to New Delhi

 

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The hospital organises awareness days for the Paraquat, with farmers and union leaders

 

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When we buy it they don’t warn us of anything, not evern to use gloves or masks or to keep it away from children

 

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In India is even available online, on Amazon

 

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However whenre it has been banned  suicides went down and agro production did not suffer

 

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Why then India was not able to ban it?

 

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We have to ask this to the minister for chemicals and fertilizers, Manshukh Mandavya. Only, he does not reply to our mails and phone calls

 

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We try to meet him in Delhi, but at the ministrer office they send us away

 

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They are sending us to the Health ministry nearby. Curiously enough the minister for chemicals is the same

 

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as the mninister of health, the same person, mister Mandavya.

 

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they are saying the minister is out of town

 

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Instead we meet human right activist and lawyer Colin Gonsalves

 

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how can a country sell a substance, banned in its own country, to other countries?

 

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Are lobbies so powerful? Several commissions have advised on banning Paraquat but it somehow makes it out of these lists last minute.

 

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How does the lobby work?

 

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How can the victims get justice?

 

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 Did you try a legal action?

 

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Waiting for a ban, people keep dieing. We get a call from Chandigarh hospital.

 

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We find this farmers coming from a Himalaya village. He drank a mouthful of Paraquat thinking it was cough syrup.

 

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He has no hope to survive.

 

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And a 16 year old boy. Doctor Ashish Bhalla is doing all he can.

 

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This boy is not from a farmers family. He had a fight with his father and drunk the Paraquat the parents had bought to

 

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get rid of a tree on their urban terrace.

 

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Now he has blisters in his mouth and esophagus. He suffers terribly.

 

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This poison is so dangerous. We are seeing doctors and doctors and they are very pessimistic.

 

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They talk about organ failures and they do nothing,

 

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How can something like this still be on sale? How can a mother live with this pain?

 

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Can we live without this weekdiller? 

 

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India needs to guarantee food security for its 1 billion 400 milion people.

 

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The farm of Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist, at the foothill of the Himalaya, wants to prove that

 

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agro chemicals are not indispensable to farming today

 

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Vandana educated over 200,000 farmers in the region to do withouth agro chemicals. But this farmer did not need convincing

 

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What happens if you use chemical substances in the fields? The food is poisoned, you will get sick,

 

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farmers here understood that, Vandana taught us all how to do without

 

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He teaches his children and grandchildren who help him on the farm before school every day.

 

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During this film we met several poisoned patients all across India. ALL of them died.

 

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But there is hope for the 16 year old boy from Chandigarh