What to watch
Published 7 October 2026
The record here ends in two places: a Swiss civil court that has agreed to look at one factual question, and a field survey that says the conditions of 2017 have not been changed in the villages it covered. What follows is a dated list of the points on which the story can still move, with the date each is known or the reason a date is not known. Items on which the sources give no schedule are marked as such.
The first is the Basel evidence phase. The Swiss civil court decided on Tuesday, June 17, 2025 to start an assessment of the evidence on whether the plaintiffs or their dead husbands used Polo, according to ECCHR. Public Eye's spokesperson, quoted by Scroll, said the phase was likely to take a while and would probably include witness hearings and party interviews, with no new evidence allowed. None of the sources gives a hearing date. The result that matters is binary as the Times of India described it: if the court finds use established, the proceedings continue, and if not, the court can reject the case. The claims against Syngenta remain alleged.
The second is Syngenta's reply in that court. In October 2023 Syngenta India told Down To Earth that it expected to "clearly demonstrate that the NGOs' allegations are baseless" in the Basel proceedings. The company's written submissions are not public in the sources reviewed here. What the court says about who made, sold and distributed Polo in 2017 is part of the same question, because Down To Earth reported Syngenta saying it does not manufacture Polo, while Public Eye said the product is the company's brand.
The third is monocrotophos. The Centre's order of Friday, September 29, 2023, as Down To Earth described it, banned four hazardous pesticides but allowed monocrotophos 36 percent SL "only for clearance of existing stock till its expiry period". The SIT recommended a full ban in 2017, and Maharashtra asked the Centre for one. The sources do not say when the stock-clearance period ends. A reader checking the status should look for the current notification from the Union agriculture ministry.
The fourth is the Pesticides Management Bill. Down To Earth reported that a draft was released in February 2018, tabled in Parliament in 2020 and sent to a parliamentary panel. No passage date appears in the sources. Whether the Bill, if passed, addresses combination products, labelling in local languages and protective equipment, the three gaps named in 2017 and 2018, is not something the sources can answer.
The fifth is the central review of 27 pesticides. Down To Earth gave May 14, 2020 for the draft order and February 16 for the later draft notification that cut the list to three. The Supreme Court petitions on 116 pesticides were pending at the time of that report, with a hearing expected in November 2023, and the record here does not show what followed. That is a gap in the sources, and it is where a reader should look first for newer developments.
The sixth is the Maharashtra data. No official death count for Yavatmal or Maharashtra after 2019 appears in the sources gathered for this draft, and the Times of India's report of Monday, November 4, 2019 gave three September 2019 deaths in Akola and Buldhana. The kharif season runs after the monsoon sets in, and the next count would come from the state agriculture department and district health offices. The 2018 and 2019 reports in Chapters 8 and 9 describe how that count was done in the two years after the outbreak.
The seventh is the survey follow-up. PAN India's January 2026 field survey covered 45 villages over three years from 2022, and the report does not say whether the survey continues or when the next round will be published. Its numbers on protective equipment, with 472 of 512 respondents saying equipment was not available, would be the baseline for any later round.
Dates for the Yavatmal story that are fixed and past are the following. The first recorded death in the Indian Express account was on Saturday, August 19, 2017. The task force's statement on nine deaths was reported on Tuesday, September 26, 2017. The state announced Rs 2 lakh and an inquiry on Tuesday, October 3, 2017. The NHRC issued its notice on Monday, October 9, 2017. The SIT was constituted on October 10 by PARI's date. The OECD complaint was filed on Thursday, September 17, 2020. The Basel lawsuit was filed in June 2021.
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