-The Economic Times CHENNAI: India's patent appeals board has denied Monsanto a patent for a genetically-engineered method of increasing climate resilience in plants. The decision is significant not only for Monsanto's loss of possible exclusivity in an increasingly important segment but also for the interpretation of India's home-grown clauses in patent law - these are unpopular with global companies - for the first time in the case of plants. The Intellectual Property...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The environment ministry's Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has cleared field trials for genetically modified rice, wheat, maize and castor for the Kharif season of 2013. The clearances - some of them extension of existing clearances that stood to lapse with state governments opposing field trials and others for relocating trial sites - come while the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill is pending before the...

-IANS Those who cherish India's constitutional values will find Gujarat Chief Minister Narenda Modi's boast to build a state of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (India's first home minister and deputy prime minister) taller than the Statue of Liberty rather chilling. By prizing nationalism over individual freedom, Modi may have once again revealed his illiberal nature. People who dislike this aspect of him, Leftists mainly, give vent to their disapproval by dismissing Modi's development...

-The Times of India A patch of wheat found growing in fallow field in Oregon, USA, has sent tremors across the world with some East Asian countries cancelling wheat import orders from the US, and the 27 member European Union to raise testing levels for US imports. The reason is that the wheat patch was found to be a genetically modified variety developed and tested by biotech giant Monsanto between 1999 and...

-Tehelka The new biotechnology Bill will allow biotech firms to tamper with our food In March, US President Barack Obama signed the HR 933 continuing resolution - popularly known as the Monsanto Protection Act - that effectively divests the federal courts of their constitutional power to stop the planting or sale of genetically modified (GM) seeds and crops regardless of the health and environmental consequences. In other words, whether you like...