An Indian judge recently ordered an independent scientific investigation into allegations that Pepsi drinks sold in India contain dangerously high levels of pesticides.
Judge BD Ahmed said fresh tests should be carried out on Pepsi products across the country this month. The results should then be published in an attempt to settle the row over whether Pepsi and Coca-Cola products are safe to drink.
The judge’s intervention came after Pepsi approached the high court in an attempt to suppress a damaging report by the Centre for Science and Environment, an independent Delhi-based research group. The centre claimed pesticide levels in some Pepsi and Coca-Cola drinks were respectively 36 and 30 times higher than European Union safety standards.
The report has led to a slump in Coke and Pepsi sales across the subcontinent, and provoked a furious reaction from the two soft drinks giants, which have cast aside their usual fierce rivalry to threaten legal action.
Parties from across the political spectrum in India have launched their own boycotts of Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Officials in West Bengal have carried out their own tests. In Bombay activists belonging to India’s ruling party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, have smashed Pepsi bottles. Even the People’s War group, which has been waging a lonely Maoist rebellion from the forests of eastern India, have called for the drinks to be withdrawn.
Both Pepsi and Coca-Cola have pointed out that the centre’s laboratory where samples were tested in February is not accredited by the government of India, and have described its findings as ”dubious”. — Â