International scientists, who are part of a review panel on Bt brinjal organised by civil society activists, recently found themselves tripped by the government's rule that there must be a two-month gap between visits to India on a tourist visa. A Norwegian scientist was refused permission to visit India this month, after an initial trip last month to hold preliminary discussions with his Indian and international colleagues preparing an ‘independent scientific...

The Secretary-General of the Supreme Court has challenged the Delhi High Court judgment that the office of the Chief Justice of India is a “public authority” that comes within the ambit of the Right to Information Act and is bound to provide information about declaration of asset details by Supreme Court judges. The appeal, filed on Monday by advocate Devadatt Kamat, said the impugned judgment “has far-reaching consequences for the institutional...

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...

SC lays down eight rules to streamline the PIL movement and wants the courts to follow them What the development of public interest litigation (PIL) and right to information has done to the justice delivery system can be compared, with a little exaggeration, to the growth of mobile telephony and Internet in communications. The only fear is that they may act like unruly horses at times. Public interest petitions have been filed...

Increasing scrutiny of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, in particular, its chairman, should lead to reforms THE past month has not been a good one for Rajendra Pachauri (pictured above), the charismatic chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of TERI, an Indian research institute. His numerous positions on boards and industrial advisory panels, in India and beyond, have led to charges of conflicts...