IMAGINE THE lowly brinjal you have always known turning into a sci-fi gizmo — with an uncharted potency for good and evil. Imagine a food turned into a pesticide — and you will have a measure of the essential uncertainty around Bt brinjal. When Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced his indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on February 9, he halted a juggernaut that could have swept India to a point...

80 % construction complete, but only 3 % rehabilitation has been done  The Environment Ministry has issued a show cause notice to the company building the Maheshwar Dam in the Narmada Valley after hundreds of affected people marched to the Ministry demanding rehabilitation. According to the notice, if the company cannot explain why 80 per cent of construction is over even while rehabilitation efforts lag behind, the project could be...

It is a step which is expected to reduce the room for political and technical whims and biases, bring in transparency and satisfy safety concerns about biotech products the country needs but is chary of embracing. The government has fasttracked a long-pending Bill to set up the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority. The Bill, revised and discussed by a committee of secretaries on Thursday, if cleared, would overhaul the current flawed regulatory...

The heat generated in the media on climate change issues has been put off by a cold winter. However, R.K. Pachauri of The Energy Research Institute (TERI), the leading climate change expert has suffered some burns. Allegations of financial dealings with corporations that are the biggest polluters and violators of good environmental practices have left him groping for cover. In his defence, he makes many separations — of himself as...

In India, the Bt Brinjal is a hot potato. Never has the eggplant - still cheap in an inflation-hit country - attracted so much attention. "Brief 38", a primer on Bt Brinjal - the country's first genetically modified (GM) food - brought out by the International Service for Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, is being downloaded 10,000 times a month. Genetically modified crops resist pests and give better yields as well as nutrition....