This is a different kind of war that has been raging for the past three years in India and refuses to end. Last week Coca Cola and Pepsi came under a renewed and fierce attack in different States in federal India.
“Pesticides in sodas rekindle Indian ire,” says Scott Baldauf, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor. “Coke and Pepsi face bans and government takes heat following a study last week.
“After investing more than $1 billion in India over the past decade, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have found themselves once again in the center of a debate over pesticide residues in their products and corporate responsibility to protect customers.
“Surveying Coke and Pepsi products from around the country, the Center for Science and Environment (India’s most powerful, independent and influential NGO) found pesticide residues in the products of the two soda giants – which together dominate more than 90 percent of the growing Indian soda market.
“The report, coming three years after CSE’s first study found pesticide traces, shines light on India’s weak food-safety laws, and threatens the profitability of two of India’s biggest foreign investors.
” ‘This is not a battle for Coke and Pepsi,’ says Sunita Narain, director of the CSE in New Delhi. ‘This is a battle for a gutsy regulator. If the government is dealing with a large, powerful company that can get away with murder, it does not build confidence that it will deal with the other areas of food safety’.”
“The debate over Coke and Pepsi in India is a story of a long love-hate relationship. Loved by the newly prosperous Indian middle class as a hip Western accessory, and distrusted by religious conservatives and old-style leftists as symbols of Western domination in a globalized world, Coke and Pepsi have a way of inflaming passions.
“For environmentalists, Coke and Pepsi are useful tools to prod the Indian government into more rigorous food-safety regulation in a country where water contamination and increased pesticide use are growing matters of concern.
” ‘Big companies make big news. Big companies of mighty nations make bigger news. I personally do not think that this reflects anti-Americanism of the middle class,’ says Rajeev Bhargava, a political science professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. ‘The Indian middle class … panics very easily when it comes to matters related to health’.
“In a country that has long debated the wisdom of drinking cold drinks in the summer – traditionalists say that hot drinks are more cooling, since they cause one to perspire – a report showing the existence of pesticides at high levels was almost certain to cause revulsion.
“In 57 samples of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo drinks produced in 12 Indian states, the CSE found the average amount of pesticide residues to be 11.85 parts per billion (ppb), 34 times higher than the permitted limit set by the Bureau of Indian Standards. These standards by the BIS have been drafted but not implemented.
“Already, Coke and Pepsi are feeling the heat. Three years after a similar report by CSE found pesticide residues up to 24 times the acceptable standards found in the West, the two soda giants have lost customers.
“Coke, which claimed in 2005 to have some 60.9 percent of the market share, reported a 10 percent drop in unit case volumes sold in the first quarter of this year.
“Pepsi, which has a 36 percent market share, seems to be weathering the storm better, because of its concentration in the fruit juice and sports drink markets.”
Meanwhile Kerala has become the first Indian State to ban the production, distribution and sale of soft drink brands of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.
“A detailed government order is awaited but a top government source said the ban applied to the colas only and not other drinks manufactured by the two soft drink majors.
“Coca-cola and Pepsi, which have a plant each in the northern Palakkad district, will have to halt operations partially in the light of the Cabinet decision, according to government sources.”
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.