-The Wall Street Journal While modern crop engineering faces endless red tape, more slipshod cross-breeding gets a free pass. India has enjoyed signal successes with genetic engineering in agriculture. But today the nation's relationship with this critical biotechnology is in total disarray, the victim of activists' scaremongering and government pandering. Delhi should know better. Following the adoption of the genetically improved varieties and intensive crop management practices of the Green Revolution, from 1960...
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Where whistleblowers are hounded out -Chander Suta Dogra
-The Hindu The trials and tribulations of Ashok Khemka and Sanjiv Chaturvedi expose Haryana’s intolerance of upright bureaucrats When Haryana’s top land registration official, Ashok Khemka, decided to probe Robert Vadra’s land deals in the State, he perhaps never anticipated the kind of animosity that his actions against Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law would generate within the government. Or, maybe he did, but went ahead nevertheless, hoping that a proactive media would...
More »Centre opposes moratorium on GM Field Trials -J Venkatesan
-The Hindu It will be a blow to Indian science, it says The Centre on Friday informed the Supreme Court that the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) seeking a 10-year moratorium on Field Trials on Genetically Modified (GM) crops will be highly detrimental and will not be in national interest. “Based on current overall status of food safety evaluation of Bt. Transgenics, including the data on Bt. Cotton and Bt. Brinjal...
More »Government against ban on open-Field Trials of GM crops, sees food security threat
-The Economic Times The government has opposed suggestions to ban open-Field Trials of genetically modified crops, telling the Supreme Court on Friday that any such move will be detrimental to the country's food security and set back research in this area by 20 years. "We are not accepting this report at all. The Government of India supports carrying out of Field Trials," Attorney General GE Vahanvati told a two-judge bench, referring to...
More »Food worry feeds GM trials -R Balaji
-The Telegraph The Supreme Court today refused to stay Field Trials of genetically modified food crops for now despite a court-appointed panel recommending a 10-year moratorium, after the Centre said such a freeze would hit food security for a growing population. The five-member technical expert committee’s (TEC) interim report had advocated the moratorium till the country improved its regulatory system for GM Field Trials to ensure proper evaluation of these crops’ health,...
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