A wind of change in India village of widows

In August this year, Dr Kapoor’s project, Khuli Saans, led to the formation of a district task force on silicosis, with him as its convenor. Former top cop and a member of Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission M.K. Devarajan formally launched the task force at a function held at, significantly, Arampura Jatav Basti, 20 kilometres from the district headquarters. DVS campaign bore more results in September-October: the state government agreed to give Rs100,000 each to 63 silicosis patients (out of 73, 10 have died so far, and eight widows have received the Rs300,000 package), and to grant them BPL status, which would make them eligible for various social welfare schemes. Meanwhile, DVS sent 314 fresh cases to NIMH in June; 149 of them have been diagnosed with silicosisRead More:

Asbestos Activist Alleges a Failure of Ethics

 Scientists and academics have a role to play to speak up against this ongoing corruption of public health policy which causes unnecessary disease and deaths.” That’s how Kathleen Ruff, an activist and founder of Rights on Canada has characterized at a recent one day conference in Montreal some of the research carried out at McGill University and the internal investigation of this alleged corruption of policy by the University. The conference (Asbestos: Dialogue for the Future) was called by the Faculty of Medicine to engage in a baseline discussion about what asbestos is, how it has been used historically and its impact on human health, and to participate in a dialogue for the future with respect to research policy, ethics, and the broader context,” according to the University. Asbestos Activist Alleges a Failure of Ethics:

Asbestos: Europe's Past, Asia's Future

Even as French asbestos victims get ready to take to the streets in protest over judicial inaction on a notorious asbestos scandal, Indian court officials have sanctioned the construction of yet another Rajasthan asbestos factory despite vocal and active protests by local people (see: Patna High Court Ruling). The use of asbestos in France has led to an epidemic responsible for thousands of deaths every year, a situation which may, tragically, be replicated in India. It seems that even in the 21st century no amount of knowledge is enough to curtail the unbridled use of a substance that is commercially viable even if it is also deadly dangerous. Asbestos: Europe's Past, Asia's Future: