-Greenpeace Genetically engineered (GE) food is a hot button topic in India. What happens here often sends ripples throughout the GE debate worldwide, but what happened last week is surely a major milestone. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, made up of members of parliament (MPs) from across party lines, tabled its latest report (http://164.100.47.134/lsscommittee/Agriculture/GM_Report.pdf) on GE food and GE crops following intense consultation with farmers, environmental groups, scientists and consumer groups. The...

-Live Mint The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has criticized India’s atomic energy regulator for not being truly independent, not having a radiation safety policy and being lax in monitoring the proliferation of unregistered medical X-ray facilities in the country. This is the first time ever that the performance of the 29-year-old Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has been reviewed by the government’s auditor. The move follows criticism of the safety of...

-Tehelka Justice Sujata Manohar on how the Biotechnology Bill is fundamentally flawed IN THE last few years, regulatory systems across the board have been undergoing an overhaul to fit the needs of a new era. Likewise, new laws are being chalked out to meet new needs, and several are receiving flak owing to the loopholes and regressive grounds on which these have been drafted. The relatively more recent one to regulate modern...

-The Hindu Meet adopts outcome report on sustainable development The veil of mist hiding the Macico da Tijuca, the mountains that guard the Brazilian city of Rio, lifted as the Rio+20 summit concluded on Friday with the adoption of the outcome report on sustainable development. The report had been finalised by the heads of states and thousands of delegates after prolonged deliberation and intense sparring. The helicopters hovering over the mountainous city, the...

-The Guardian 'Pathway for a sustainable future' declared, but Greenpeace says summit was failure of epic proportions Amid doubt, disappointment and division, the world's governments came together in Rio on Friday to declare "a pathway for a sustainable century". At the close of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, heads of state and ministers from more than 190 nations signed off on a plan to set global sustainable development goals and other measures to...