Though vital to keep pace with the globe, mobile towers raise threats to human health as well as the whole ecosystem. Marring the natural beauty and barring the basic human rights, these masts sprout across the country, gagging media and the cadgers in power. Madhu Chembery elucidates the re-drawn Indian landscape with upright towers, against the palm-fringed lush terrains.

Gone are the days when mobile phones were a luxury. In the fast-paced world it became an indispensable commodity. Many multi national companies, rooted in India, never appoint an employee, if he does not own a cell phone. If they find him that much fit, they provide him a cell phone connection, deducting the cost from his salary.

When we are provided with mobile restaurant, mobile library,mobile freezer and like, why do we bother the torrents of mobile phones? Yes, it is the need of the hour. In a world where most of the mothers are anxiously waiting for their kids to return from the school, their husbands from their office, where TV channels give flash news of fatal accidents on the streets in every minutes, will anyone say ‘no’ to a mobile phone?

Still tirades, in the form of write-ups and awareness programs are at its best in the country, now a day. So something not good is there behind this new kid. It is nothing but its inverse effect on human health as well as the ecosystem of the planet as a whole.

Democracy?

Mobile towers are mushrooming in every minute over the green fields of India. While the erection of mobile tower upon school and hospital buildings is barred, the mobile companies bribe the high end shopping malls and multi-storied apartments to install their products. Call it unawareness or greediness for money, the building-owners allows the companies to spread their vicious wings over the lives of many. Oppositions are ruled out as usual, taking the minority-majority ratio as a yard stick to gauge and tag. Those who protect against this are bannered and brushed aside as old fogies.

The major risks caused by the towers are health-related. In a country like India, where everyone enjoys the freedom and individual rights of democracy, the most rampant sight is its poignant exploitation. It is very pathetic in a democratic nation where judiciary and media are at their best, to have a social menace, prevalent for long. This seems to be paradoxical as well as wondering to the world outside.

What the researchers say

But a survey conducted throughout India, unearthed a number of bad effects of the mobile phones and its connectivity towers.. India is the third largest mobile phone market next only to China and US. The demand-supply theory when positively work out, what left is the ‘struggle for existence’.

We are at the grave risk. Mobile towers pose a serious threat to human health. The invisible electromagnetic waves radiated by the mobile towers affect the human body only gradually. Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR) is with a frequency of 1900MHz. With this high frequency they can easily pass through our body. It inversely affects everything in a square kilometer range. The standard fixed by International Commission of Non Iodized radiation is only 600micro watt/m2, but no any mobile company follow this as such and emits a radiation power of 7260 micro watt/m2. Facilities like GPRS, GSM, CDMA and like services for internet users, which give out the maximum radio frequency 24×7. Experts have warned it earlier that it might lead to human behavioral cracks. As it directly affects the brain, it has inverse effect on man’s unique quality- the power to think.

It is high time we had a proper legislation in place to bring mobile towers under legal frame work. Despite some fragile guidelines, judiciary and the authority end keep mum against this menace. They simply wait for the statutory medical reports proving the disasters despite the WHO’ s findings and warnings against using cell phones heavily more than a decade could cause, cancer, specifically brain tumor.

Media, Executive and Legislature fail to direct the attention of the public toward this issue. Otherwise, we can conclude that a concerted effort is being poached here to gag them from talking it aloud.

Threat to ecosystem

In the Kerala state, more than one lakh people are indulged in apiculture. With the advent of the mobile towers, the bee population has got drastically reduced. Experts say that one mobile tower can collapse a colony of bees within 10 days. Kerala, once known as the ‘land of singing birds’ is now almost devoid of birds. Natives point out two reasons for this,. One is, they don’t have any thing to eat as all the green fields were domed with apartments and mobile towers. No farmers to work in the fields and the left ones are seen barren and sterile. The other reason is, the radiation emitted by the towers. If watched, we can see the flying birds avoiding the towers. They never try to rest upon it, but prefer to sit on the electric cables. Distributions of birds like sparrow, common mynah, doves and like are affected more. If things are going on like this, the next generation kids will have these birds and bees, only as pictures on the walls or the images in the poems of veteran poets.

Life has evolved under two omnipresent forces – gravity and electromagnetism. Like bees, white storks, sparrows and such organisms having fragile physiques are quite prone to the RF radiations. Several million birds die from collision with telecommunication masts during migration. Birds and bees use earth’s electromagnetic fields to navigate and flock and, when this is disrupted by the man-made factors, they tend to be disoriented. More over, when it affects the immune system, there is a tendency for their weakly built body to develop diseases like, bird flu, and viral infections as the secondary stage.

RF pollution constitutes a potential cause for the decline of animal population and deterioration of health of the plants. There will be another resonance against those who moan for the animals and plants while human health is under constant threat. But India, especially, Kerala has a stupendous history of successful riots against the bestial atrocities against the environment. The jubilant example of such a triumph is the existence of the one and only rain forest in the country- The Silent Valley. Twenty five years ago, a huge segment including the power scoffed at the rioters for ‘moaning for the macaques’. But the ultimate victory was with the wild life and peace riots, as it could be convinced that, these duos together constitute the natural ecosystem of the planet.

The dos and don’ts

Anyways, the internal Housing Departments have woken up now, to a relief. They present strict norms for the installation of mobile towers. They bar the erection of these radio active towers upon a medical or educational institution. Permission to install such towers would be given only in open spaces like parks or agricultural land. Installation in residential and commercial area is to be done only after taking due permission from the concerned development authority. In residential areas the company will have to get a No Objection Certificate from the resident welfare association.

They also advocate the generator of the equipments to run the tower should be silent in order to avoid sound pollution. They insist the need of an IIT safety certificate for each tower to be installed.

Plaguing arguments

Mobile companies deny the arguments by challenging the public to present any single scientific record proving the installation of connectivity towers in residential area is hazardous to health. Besides, they also claim that the RF emissions from these towers are within the safe limits. For the better coverage and transmission as per the demand, they were pursued to install more towers, to which the (ignorant) building owners lease their roof tops. This in turn affects the structural safety also especially in the time of minor earth quakes and severe winds. Weakly constructed buildings never withstand such natural calamities if a huge tower is also mounted on it.

The Truth

The thing which is always prone to be shrouded, deglamorised and twisted in the world, is truth. Violation of laws is prevalent, wherever a law exists.

You go and ask a general physician in your premises about the feedback of his patients suffering from the pernicious radiation of the mobile towers. Their advice to their patients is to stay away from the tower. But for a layman who sustains on daily wages, just imagine, how he can obey his doctor. In Thane, such an incident happened which was revealed to the world only when a lawyer himself put an appeal to remove a tower, which caused carcinoma to a woman from a poor family. After the removal of her one breast and subsequent radiations and all, the doctor repeatedly asked them to go and live somewhere else, as the tower was at a close proximity to their home. But they couldn’t. After some time, she again came to the doctor, crippled by the same disease. When told about their incapacity to change the dwelling place, that news became news. At last, as per the lawyer’s personal initiation, the tower was removed from that thickly populated residential area.

If a tower has to install in a residential area, they should avail an NOC from the residents’ association. In fact, the common man is unaware of this law. This ignorance and unawareness are being exploited by the mobile companies.

That is why in Kerala, the most literate state in India, more than three towers are seen erected together barring all the prescribed norms, in thickly populated residential colonies. Recently, in a village area in Trichur District, where more than three residents associations, five 3-storied apartments, and one primary school exist, three separate towers of three various mobile companies were erected together. Despite the wailing and moaning of the residents, the masts stand upright as a challenge towards the human rights against the money power. District collector, Corporation Mayor and the state ministers (including the natives) and like people are plying through this way at least two times daily. But like that lawyer of Thane, nobody is here to initiate a petition instead of putting some cloth banners describing the ill effects of the towers.

When asked, a native of this place retorted “Does anything happens to rich and influential corporate in India despite the common man’s pleas? Public memory is short and they have loads of burdens and no time to spin around the legal vagaries. There will be some turmoil for a month or so, eventually, the case will fall apart on some flimsy technical grounds…that’s how things work in India.”

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