In 2010, subject to government approvals, Indian farmers will seed their fields with transgenic brinjals—brinjals with a genetic variant that, courtesy Monsanty-Mahyco Ltd and a clutch of agricultural universities, protect them from insects. But 14 years ago, Polumetla Ananda Kumar successfully planted the first Indian transgenic brinjals in a field in west Delhi. Then he promptly burnt the entire crop to the ground. Kumar, head of the National Plant Biotechnology Centre at...
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Kashmir's houseboats in decline by David Loyn
The houseboat industry in Indian-administered Kashmir, one of the jewels in India's tourist crown, is threatened with closure. If it does not clean up its act the courts have threatened to close down the houseboats, which have entertained visitors since British times. The boats are intricately carved and often very spacious, but 20 years of low investment during the insurgency against Indian control of the Kashmir Valley have taken their toll....
More »Judicial Activism and Investigative Journalism: Editors as PIL Litigants by Prabhakar Kulkarni
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) can be filed in any High Court or directly in the Supreme Court. It is not necessary that the petitioner has suffered some injury of his own or has had personal grievance to litigate. The PIL is a right given to the socially conscious member or a public spirited NGO to espouse a public cause by seeking judicial means for redressal of public injury. Such...
More »Bonus Excesses and Outrage by Jaimini Bhagwati
Government and regulators need to focus on the systemic risk engendered by excessive compensation. As calendar year 2009 draws to a close, it is bonus season for the financial sector in the West. In the last several months, the need to cap bonuses and compensation packages has been extensively discussed in the context of limiting the future impact of the next financial sector breakdown. On December 9, 2009, the UK was...
More »Who owns the eggplant? by Latha Jishnu
As agriculture universities transform local varieties into genetically modified Bt brinjal, questions of ownership arise. Indians call it the brinjal. Other countries know it as the eggplant or aubergine. It is widely used the world over and every cuisine from the Chinese to the African has an encyclopaedia of recipes that establishes its popularity as a vegetable of daily use. And no vegetable has hogged the headlines as much as the...
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