The issue of banning 27 controversial, yet widely used, pesticides has been lingering for years despite examinations by expert panels and interventions by the Supreme Court. The latest scientific committee that has gone into this matter, and whose report has been presented by the government to the apex court, has cleared as many as 24 of these agro-chemicals, leaving only three to be proscribed. This committee, headed by T P Rajendran, a former assistant director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, is said to have taken into consideration the findings of the safety, toxicity, and efficacy trials of these agro-chemicals and the opinion of the farmers who have been using them for decades to save their crops from pests, diseases, and weeds. An absence of cheaper, and equally effective, alternatives for these molecules has been cited among reasons for cutting short this list. Though the government has informed the apex court that no final decision has yet been t