Over the last few months, connectivity issues have led irate consumers to accuse telecom companies of frequent call drops, even going far enough to demand compensation. Despite paying all the tariffs and bills, users do not get to enjoy the ‘uninterrupted services’ that they are promised. The companies blame this issue on the word ‘radiation’- much misconstrued by people who do not know about it at all.
The mobile and internet age has dug its own grave by reducing the attention span of the average individual, which in turn results in half knowledge. As is correctly said ‘no knowledge is better than half knowledge,’ there is no denying the fact that most people today see only what is portrayed by unscrupulous media looking for traction by mishandling such human triggers that flash images like that of the Chernobyl disaster in the minds of the people.
Accused of emitting radiation, a large number of mobile towers from different parts of the country have been taken down, and the telecom companies face difficulty in setting up new ones for the same reason.
Electro Magnetic Frequency/Radiation: Debunking the myth
EMFs or radiation can be dangerous if they are ionizing in nature – they are stronger and can damage living tissues. This means that unless the frequencies of the radiation are beyond ultraviolet, they do not pose any threat to health or life. Mobile frequencies or tower radiation do not pose any such threat as they are too weak to cause any harm. Only X-rays and gamma rays can produce such heavy emission that results in ionizing frequencies.
Mobile towers and phones emit as low as one-thousandth to one-millionth of the radio frequency radiation than that of UV. EMF radiation data collected by Rowley and Joyner from across 21 countries suggests that the average exposure is as low as 0.73 milliwatts per square meter. The standards and norms instituted by the Indian government are ten times more stringent than most countries across the globe including USA, France, and Japan.
The Allahabad court, in response to several petitions, set up a special committee comprising of thirteen scientists, professor, technologists and doctors to examine the hazards of radiation from mobile towers. The committee came to a conclusion that the radiation was not nearly high enough to cause any health issues. Over the years, several other researches have confirmed the same, and globally close to more than 25,000 studies have been done to ascertain the impact.
The array of evidence is quite overwhelming. However, propagators of different interests, promote an absurd idea that mobile towers or usage of mobile phones increase the chance of cancer, not just among users, but also among the people around them.
Mobile phones provide seamless connectivity, which is an essential thing for a nation to grow. Unfounded fears that result in shutting down or stop new ones from being established are detrimental to society and should be rectified to leverage healthy socio-economic growth.
Over the years, experts have emphasized that with such a huge population, India could be a superpower, if there is good connectivity between educators and learners. If a mobile tower in an agricultural village in Bengal gets taken down, and the people do not have any information about irrigational developments in Maharashtra, it will result in an extremely imbalanced growth. Technologically, India may be one of the fastest growing, but with better connectivity, national goals in all spheres can be reached quickly and more efficiently.
