IMAGINE THE lowly brinjal you have always known turning into a sci-fi gizmo — with an uncharted potency for good and evil. Imagine a food turned into a pesticide — and you will have a measure of the essential uncertainty around Bt brinjal. When Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced his indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on February 9, he halted a juggernaut that could have swept India to a point...
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Food security bill back on Centre table
The draft Food Security Bill, which has returned to the negotiating table of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) after a gap, is, among other things, expected to witness discussions on the number of people to be covered by the scheme across the country, whether the other vulnerable sections of the society are to brought within its ambit, whether it should be confined to the distribution of either rice or...
More »Plan panel withdraws RTI against Highways Ministry by Dipak Kumar Dash
In an unprecedented move, which could lead to simmering down the tension between the highways ministry and the Planning Commission, the principal adviser (infrastructure) in the planning panel Gajendra Haldea has withdrawn an RTI application seeking status of highway projects approved by Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC). The retired bureaucrat and a member of the PPPAC had filed the application before director (RTI) asking for status of NHAI projects...
More »None to protect tribal rights in panel on forest resources
Ministries of environment and forests and tribal affairs have jointly set up a 10-member committee to study and assess the impact of Forest Rights Act on sustainable management of forest resources. Given the lead role played by the environment ministry in this committee, concerns have been flagged off by civil society organisations about the real intent and legality of the committee. The committee headed by former director-general of Forest Survey...
More »Maoism at Its Nadir: The Killings in Bengal by Vijay Prashad
Violence in West Bengal’s western districts has reached crisis proportions. Each day, one or more cadre member or sympathizer of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] is killed either by Maoists or the Trinamul Congress (TMC). The Maoists have found common cause with the TMC, a breakaway from the Congress Party in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee, whose authoritarian populism draws from both Juan and Evita Peron, leads the TMC. Backed...
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