A parliamentary panel has asked the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to put in place a mechanism to monitor harmful electromagnetic fields (EMF) radiation from mobile phone towers.
A draft report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Mulri Manohar Joshi said that India was perhaps the only country in the world not having any mechanism to measure radiation in the wake of increasing coverage of mobile telephony and towers doting skylines across the country.
The panel said that the responsibility rested on DoT. However, DoT officials who have appeared before the panel said that they had issued a circular in November 2009 asking mobile companies to test and certify the radiation emitting from their Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs).
Radiation City - Tehelka (India 2010)
REHAAN DASTUR, 46, is an engineer and an industrialist. he owns and runs a profitable Delhi-based boiler manufacturing company called Universal Boilers. So, it is safe to say he is a man of science and not prone to paranoia. Dastur was one of the first users of the cell phone in India. he bought his phone from airtel in October 1997, 15 days before it was commercially released. Cell phone calls cost rs 18 a minute then. Dastur spoke on his phone for hours on end at times. He continued to use the phone even though it had fallen and had developed a crack, because cell phones then were expensive and the crack didn’t affect his phone’s efficiency.Three years after doing this, in 2000, Dastur suffered a stroke that paralysed his body and distorted and froze his face. The doctor treating him at Delhi’s Apollo hospital told him he had Bell’s palsy, caused by Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) emitted from the antennae in his cell phone. The emr travelled through the crack in the phone, into Dastur’s ears, nerves and brain.
After a month-and-a-half of treatment at the hospital and home, he returned to 95 percent of his former self. Ninety-five percent, because he is in danger of reverting to a paralytic state if he goes near a cell phone tower, or uses a cell phone for too long. “My body is the best device for measuring emr,” he says. “If you take me blindfold through the city, I can point out where the cell towers are by the jangling I feel in my nerves as we pass them by.”
THE MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES
Hazards from EMR range from short to long term. A headache today could mean a tumour tomorrow
IMMEDIATELY Could hinder pacemakers and ICDs, which could be fatal for patients
3 YEARS Appetite loss, sleep disorders, headaches, short term memory loss
4-5 YEARS Tinnitus, muscle spasms, visual disorder, skin ailments
5-10 YEARS Drop in sperm count, cardio and respiratory problems
8-10 YEARS Acoustic neuroma, brain tumour, leukaemia
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