[Grapevine] Couple of special articles

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** ADMIN NOTE: **

A couple of thought-provoking and very relevant articles that are a bit 
long for the regular newsletter. Hence, this special posting.

Regards,
- 'shal
harshal@mumbai-central.com



 Environment-India: Plastic Bags Menace Towns and Cities - Inter Press Service
 Women with HIV Forgo Costly AIDS Treatment - AP


 
 Environment-India: Plastic Bags Menace Towns and Cities - Inter Press Service
   NEW DELHI: The virtually indestructible plastic bag has become
   the bane of poor developing countries like India and Bangladesh where
   governments battling on many fronts have let the menace of polybags grow. 
 
   India's towns and cities are littered with polybags. They float on 
   busy roads and wave like prayer flags from tree tops. Waste dumped 
   in plastic bags on the street for collection often ends up in the 
   stomach of foraging cattle. 
 
   Polythene bags choked Dhaka's drains causing filthy sewer water to 
   overflow into drinking water supplies in the recent prolonged floods 
   in Bangladesh, the worst in living memory. 
 
   So vexatious was waterlogging and its consequences - diarrhoeal and other
   water-borne diseases swept the capital - there were demands for a total 
   ban on the manufacture of polybags, already under attack for being 
   environmentally unsafe. 
 
   Indian environmentalists have been jangling alarm bells for years, 
   saying local manufacturers flout safeguards and polybag recycling is in 
   fact detrimental to health. 
 
   Late last year, the Ministry of Environment said it has decided to regulate 
   the manufacture. It prescribed that polybags be transparent, made of 
   virgin plastic and used to carry food. 
 
   Lobbying the government saved the Plastic Manufacturers Association 
   based in Bombay, India's financial capital, from the axe of a blanket 
   ban, charge environmentalists. 
 
   They believe that nothing short of a countrywide ban would ease the 
   situation.  States like Himachal Pradesh and the autonomous Ladakh Hill 
   Development Council have enforced bans, giving a tax exemption to 
   the paper bag industry. 
 
   "In 10 years since they replaced paper bags, polybags have become a 
   complete nuisance," says Ravi Agarwal of the non-governmental Srishti. 
 
   Activists hold the government responsible. "The official handling of 
   hazardous polybags has been lopsided till date," asserts Bharati 
   Chaturvedi, a consultant with the Delhi-based National Foundation of 
   India, which mobilizes public opinion on development action. 
 
   "The Environment Ministry has decided that the best way to manage plastic 
   bags is to work in partnership with those whose interests lie in 
   continuously creating the waste in the first place," charges Chaturvedi. 
 
   She voices the frustration of environmentalists who point out that the 
   Ministry is stressing on increasing each bag's thickness whereas it 
   should be working towards a total ban. 
 
   Country-wide NGOs are pushing a campaign to "say no to plastic bags"
   particularly in schools. Some 200,000 schoolchildren in Delhi are 
   spiritedly spurning polybags for eco-friendly alternatives, says 
   activists. 
 
   At the start of a new school year, a 12 year old girl in west Delhi 
   insists on buying a jute school bag. Another child has convinced his 
   mother to pack sandwiches in a cloth napkin because plastic is a 
   major environmental hazard. 
 
   "The need of the hour is to get the message across to the people that 
   the age-old newspaper bags are much more environment friendly options," 
   points out Agarwal. 
 
   The cottage industry, which hand-produces the bags, is a source 
   of livelihood for scores of women. Paper and jute bags are sturdy, 
   traditional Indian alternatives.
   Today they have been eclipsed by polybags whose consumption has increased
   by 169 percent in the last five years. 
 
   Says environmentalist Iqbal Malik, "Plastic bags are a part of the 
   disposable culture of the West. We have aped this... abandoning the use 
   of jute or fabric bags which were popular in Indian households much 
   before plastic began to be used." 
 
   Quality controls are absent in polybag manufacture. Sixty percent of 
   the some 18,000 manufacturing units in the country are unregistered, say 
   Vatavaran or environment, another Delhi-based NGO. 
 
   Discarded bags are left to be picked up for recycling by street children 
   and ragpickers but not all of them are salvaged since ragpickers are paid 
   only two rupees for 500 bags in Delhi. 
 
   "This negligible amount makes collection uneconomical for the ragpickers 
   who ignore these plastic bags which continue to be a nuisance for the 
   civic authorities and an environmental hazard," says Deepika Pawar of 
   Toxics Link here. 
 
   The recycling process too is cumbersome. Bags are shredded and melted 
   down before being sold to manufacturers at 12 rupees per kilo who break 
   it into granules and sell it to polybag manufacturers who turn them back 
   into bags in a machine. 
 
   "The discarded bags are not cleaned properly as a result they can 
   cause dysentery, allergy and cholera," points out Pawar. Tests conducted 
   by the Assam Pollution Control Board found toxic metals like copper and 
   chromium in coloured polybags. 
 
   The government Board stressed that food kept in contaminated polythene bags
   over a period of time could lead to anemia, vertigo and in advanced stages
   damage the nervous system. 
 
   "Carry a bag, not a carry bag" is a slogan whose time hasn't come. 
 
 
 

 Women with HIV Forgo Costly AIDS Treatment - AP
   Mumbai: Both husband and wife have the virus that causes AIDS, but only 
   one of them can afford the fistful of daily drugs that is the best
   treatment for the deadly and incurable disease. 
 
   The wife, who refused to be named for fear of being ostracized by 
   her neighbors because she carries the HIV, says she never hesitated to 
   give up her own battle.  The Bombay homemaker hopes combination drug 
   therapy will buy her husband's survival well into the new year. 
 
   "Look, only one of us can go in for the treatment. Naturally it's him," 
   she said.  "Whatever money is left I have to save for my child." 
 
   Subhash Hira, director of Bombay's Aids Research and Control Center, says
   the Bombay homemaker's story is typical. Increasingly, women with HIV are
   forgoing treatment in favor of their husbands. 
 
   "It is the woman who is stepping back. She thinks of herself as 
   dispensable.  They are pushing their husbands and even their children 
   for the combination therapy but say, 'I'll decide later.' It's sad," 
   Hira said. 
 
   Hira estimates that less than 1 percent of those living with HIV in India 
   can afford what has become known as the AIDS cocktail. Indigenous production 
   of drugs and perhaps even development of a vaccine may be the only way for
   developing countries to combat AIDS. But costs remain high in India even
   though an Indian company has begun to produce some of the treatment drugs. 
 
   While there is no way to eliminate the AIDS virus from the body, three- to
   four-drug cocktails have successfully lowered HIV to undetectable levels in
   many patients. Typically, HIV patients on the cocktail treatment take about 
   20 pills a day. Even in industrialized countries, where incomes are 
   higher, the cost of such treatment is burdensome. 
 
   Most middle-class Indian households, with the husband as breadwinner, 
   earn an average monthly income of about $120. 
 
   Patients shelled out six times that amount each month in 1996 for the 
   cocktail therapy, including Azidothymidine (AZT), needed to boost their 
   battered immune systems. The cost dropped by about half this year for 
   AIDS drugs after Cipla, an Indian pharmaceutical company, began 
   manufacturing a key drug. 
 
   India, one of the poorest countries in the world, has the most 
   HIV-positive citizens -- an estimated 4 million people. Here, families 
   often chip in money to help with treatment, Hira said. 
 
   The Bombay homemaker's family is furious that the money they send to buy 
   her drugs is being spent on her unemployed husband. She said she never 
   had the time to feel angry that her husband had infected her with HIV 
   a year ago. 
 
   "He was so sick and running such high temperature. There was no time to 
   think, 'Because of him, I'm infected.' Sometimes now I do get upset." 
 
   Her husband's recurring fever, ulcers and diarrhea stopped with the 
   medication. 
 
   "He's much better now. But I can feel the tiredness," she said. 
 
   Officials at Cipla say prices will fall if the government cuts import 
   tariffs. Cipla imports ingredients in bulk to produce its pills. 
 
   Before the drugs were manufactured in India, patients had to apply for 
   customs duty exemption for drugs manufactured abroad. 
 
   "It took more than a month for the forms to be processed, and the moment 
   we got the capsules, we had to apply for the next batch. Now it's much 
   simpler, but still costs are high," the Bombay homemaker said. 
 
   On a global level, the World Bank wants to encourage pharmaceutical
   companies to develop AIDS vaccines even though most of the users would 
   be in poor countries that cannot spend much money on medicine. Officials 
   in India and Africa have been approached to pursue a vaccine. 
 
   There are just 10 centers in India with laboratories to monitor the 
   combination drug therapy, and patients travel thousands of miles to Bombay 
   for testing.  Bombay is one of two major Indian cities where more than 
   1 percent of the adult population has HIV. 
 
   Rajesh, who agreed to be identified only by his first name, travels for 
   tests every six months from a town more than 500 miles north of Bombay. 
   He said the cost of tests to monitor immunity levels are as prohibitive as 
   the AIDS cocktail. His wife also refused treatment so that he could begin 
   medication. 
 
   "The costs should come down. The drugs are my only ray of hope," he said,
   adding that he hoped to save enough money so his wife can start treatment. 
 
   "She is a brave woman. Her family told her to leave me, but she says 
   it is her duty to take care of me for as long as I live." 



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