In April last year, the Supreme Court, in response to a public interest litigation filed by the Gene Campaign (whose convenor is the internationally known geneticist Dr Suman Sahai), directed the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to consider the toxicity and allergenicity of GM crops and to post the relevant material on the web so that independent experts could examine these. The Supreme Court asked the GEAC to study also...

Study claims modern farming threatens nomadic cattle herding.  Nomadic herders who move their cattle ceaselessly across some of the harshest environments in the world in search of grazing land are vital for Africa’s economic prosperity, but their way of life is being undermined by governments, conservationists and large-scale farmers, according to a study. Millions of hectares of land traditionally used by pastoralists in Ethiopia, Senegal, Mali, Chad, Kenya and other...

Bihar has been in the news recently for recording an average growth rate of 11.3 per cent for the period between 2004 and 2009. Much has been written about the quality of governance and the improved state of roads. This is indeed commendable, and no mean achievement, for a State that had virtually become a “development outcast”. I was pleasantly surprised to note on a recent trip to Bihar the...

Are the world and human society in general ready and willing to take action on critical issues that require a major change in the manner in which we produce and consume goods and services?  The science of climate change is now well established. This is the result of painstaking work of over two decades carried out by thousands of scientists drawn from across the globe to assess every aspect of...

‘We must analyse whether risks are more or benefits are more’  The government should not be in hurry to introduce Bt brinjal until fundamental issues were addressed, agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan said here on Saturday. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a consultation on “Effective community management of biodiversity in an era of climate change,” Dr. Swaminathan said: “Every technology has its benefits and risks. But it all depends...