{"id":29654,"date":"2026-06-13T11:10:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=29654"},"modified":"2026-06-13T14:45:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T09:15:35","slug":"paraquat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/paraquat\/","title":{"rendered":"Paraquat"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Paraquat Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Telangana recently banned paraquat, one of the world&#8217;s most widely used and highly toxic weedicides, becoming only the third State in India to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Paraquat<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paraquat, or <\/span><b>paraquat dichloride<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is a <\/span><b>toxic chemical<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that is <\/span><b>used worldwide<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as an <\/span><b>herbicide <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(plant killer), usually for weed and grass control.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paraquat\u2019s origins date back to the <\/span><b>1880s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, when it was <\/span><b>first developed as a chemical dye. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its herbicidal properties were discovered in the 1950s.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>synthetic (human-made) herbicide.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>also used as a desiccant, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which <\/span><b>dries out the crop before harvest<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Paraquat is sometimes <\/span><b>used as a plant growth regulator.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It may induce or delay flowering. It has no residual activity in soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Major Concerns:<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It causes many <\/span><b>health issues and human fatalities<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> each year from <\/span><b>accidental exposure and suicide.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is known for its <\/span><b>extreme toxicity <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>lack of a specific antidote.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When paraquat is ingested, it<\/span><b> damages the lining of the mouth, stomach<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><b>intestines <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">upon contact.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It then <\/span><b>spreads throughout the body<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>damaging organs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but primarily the lungs, liver, and kidneys.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More than <\/span><b>70% of paraquat self-poisonings result in death.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paraquat is <\/span><b>banned in 74 countries.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>not yet banned nationwide in India.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In India, <\/span><b>Kerala <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">became the <\/span><b>first State to ban<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it in 2011.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Other states<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which banned paraquat are <\/span><b>Odisha, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News<\/b><strong>:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/telangana\/the-human-cost-of-a-deadly-weed-killer-banning-of-paraqua-in-telangana\/article71094620.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>TH<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paraquat is a toxic chemical that is used worldwide as an herbicide (plant killer), usually for weed and grass control. Read more about Paraquat Herbicide, Poisoning, Major Concerns, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":108040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8112,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-29654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-paraquat-herbicide","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108065,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29654\/revisions\/108065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}