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If you are trying to say that all of India's water is all pesticide ridden then you are making the most asinine comment anyone has ever made on FR. India has 3.3 million sq. km or land area. You saying entire India is ridden with pesticide? You must be nutz.

And what have you got to prove that its Indian water that's carrying the pesticides? Any evidence? Or you are one of those righteous Americans who believe that there could never be anything wrong with an American product.

Also explain why no other soft drink product have as much pesticide levels as does Coke or Pepsi?

And even if I accept for a moment that it could be because of the local source of water supply used by Coco Cola company thats contaminated, even then whose responsibility is it to make the product safer for consumption before they put it on the shelf for consumption? Its disgraceful for Americans to expect us to drink a product of theirs thats far less safer than the local water supply. Coca Cola is know to have 27 times higher residues than the BIS standards for total pesticides in soft drinks (0.5 ppb) according to CSE study.

Look, genius, where do the Coke bottlers in India get their water? Norway?

I have no idea what the overall condition of Indian water supply is, but I doubt it's terrific. Maybe all the photos of people washing their clothes in the Ganges are fakes.

I'm repeating myself here, but here's the story of this story.

Someone, (we don't know who, but let's guess, perhaps a domestic producer of soft drinks?) brings a suit claiming caffeine and aspertame are dangerous chemicals in Coke and Pepsi.

Never mind that caffeine is consumed in massive quantities in other Indian beverages, and I assume aspertame is available as well. Where's the lawsuit against Sweet and Low?

That didn't work, so they attempted the pesticide angle. They got a private group to come up with some research. Not a government group, a private group. Who knows how they're funded or what their real agenda is.

Then this group found two judges who ordered the soft drink companies two months to reveal the recipe for their syrup.

They could have ordered tests of their syrup for pesticides, but no, they want the secret recipe. Now why is that?

It has nothing to do with pesticides. It has everything to do with the companies obvious refusal to provide that.

They know Pepsi and Coke won't do that which will force them out of the country. Just as originally intended.

I don't really care that you're kicking our products out of the country, but your stupid lies as to why you're doing it are just stupid.

In the meantime, have a BIG glass of water.

Pesticide-schmesticide. The play is jolly obvious. India has a protectionist market controled by a very few wealthy families. The market for soft drink in India is huge. Getting rid of foreign offerings like Coke and Pepsi creates a vaccuum: and Nature doth abhor a vaccuum. Step in a local Indian supplier with a product that is a reasonable facsimile. Voila! Problem solved!

Not a bad strategy, makes perfect sense to get rid of foreign quasi-monopolies if one is to have a marketplace well-protected against foreign competition. But it's not a position that can be dignified under the auspices of a "health issue."

Coke and Pepsi a pesticide/herbicide? C'mon! That's just not credible.