-The Hindu The debate on the pros and cons of genetically engineered/modified crops is universal. In India, in the face of vociferous protests, the controversy has only deepened leading to a Moratorium on cultivation of Bt Brinjal crop — the first GM food crop sought to be commercialised. Gargi Parsai spoke to Basudeb Acharia, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, on its new report, “Cultivation of Genetically Modified Food...

-The Business Standard Madhav Gadgil headed the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel set up by the ministry of environment and forests in 2010. The report zoned 75 per cent of the Western Ghats into different grades of ecological sensitivity. The recommendation was to protect these zones with measures by phasing out mining and introducing organic farming and eco-friendly urbanisation. The report also proposed a development model executed in consultation with the...

-The Telegraph Union home minister P. Chidambaram today expressed concern over Bengal’s “culture of violence” and advised “the so-called educated classes” to stop living in a “fool’s paradise”. The first part of the remarks by Chidambaram, who was speaking to industrialists on the need for democratic forms of dissent, was hotly contested by the Mamata Banerjee government that is already suspicious of the UPA because of the Left’s support to the central...

-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...

Soon Indian consumers will have the opportunity to know whether the packaged food that they are buying contains genetically modified organisms. But will that help? In India, where a majority of food is unprocessed and non-packaged, labeling on packaged food may hardly cover the huge populations' right to choose. A gazette notification issued by the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution early this month says that every food package...