UPA ignoring public health to please cola majors

Kolkata, Aug 23: The Socialist Unity Centre of India(SUCI) today critised the Centre for giving a 'clin chit' to the cola majors and demanded that a non-government high-powered committee probe whether the aerated drinks had toxic contents.

In a statement, SUCI General Secretary Nihar Mukherjee said the way the UPA Government rejected the report of Centre for Science and Environment(CSE) by alluding to a contrary report produced by a hurriedly appointed committee, made it clear that it was ''subverting'' the question of people's health to serve the commercial interest of 'foreign monopolists'.

The statement said when similar allegations based on laboratory test of samples by the CSE were levelled against the two MNCs in 2003, the then BJP-led Government too tried to give a clean chit to them by eliciting a favourable report from a Joint Parliamentary Committee, which, however, could not but endorse the allegation.

''It is ridiculous that when even US-based universities are banning these cola drinks for being contaminated to the point of a kind of slow poisoning, the Government is shamelessly holding brief for such death merchants, ''it said.

UNI