In a rare demonstration of solidarity, women from suburban Nellore, have come together to oppose the setting up cell tower by Reliance Communications in their colony, and succeeded in stalling the installation. The women folk even forced local MLA Kotam Reddy Sridhar Reddy (YSR Congress) to join them and oppose the installation. This incident happened on Monday in BD Colony area of Nellore town. Sridhar Reddy led the women to the local authorities to register their opposition. The women demanded that the cell towers should not be installed amid their houses as it was injurious to the health. The officials instructed the Reliance Company to stop the erection of the cell tower temporarily. Cell-tower radiation in India is slowly meeting popular opposition. A high-level panel appointed by the Department of Telecom (DoT) recently recommended stricter regulation of radiation emitted by the cell tower across India. The report, submitted by Prof. Girish Kumar, Electrical Engineering Department, IIT, Mumbai, said, “ Cell phone industry is becoming another cigarette industry, which kept claiming that smoking is not harmful and now there are millions of people around the world who have suffered from smoking. In fact, cell phone/tower radiation is worse than smoking; as one cannot see it or smell it, and its effect on health is noted after a long period of exposure. Therefore, majority of people tend to have casualness towards personal protection. Unfortunately, ignorance and non-awareness adds to this misery and all of us are absorbing this slow poison unknowingly.”
