-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Farmer and food activists have alleged that genetically modified soya bean seeds are being imported "illegally" for cultivation, in violation of a directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT) notification of 2006 that prohibits the import of GMOs without approval from the genetic engineering appraisal committee (GEAC). Some activists have also found imported packaged foods containing GM ingredients being sold in departmental stores, one of which is...

-The Economic Times "Open any boll here and you'll see it's destroyed," says Ganesh Shere, a farmer at a village called Jamb in Yavatmal district, about 160 km from Nagpur, in northeast Maharashtra. He walks along the length of his bone-dry, four-acre cotton field and splits two dozen cotton bolls, with a stone or his fingers, to reveal the damage done by pink bollworms, which have become resistant to the genetically modified...

-The Hindu Business Line Asks firm to own up responsibility; threatens to stop selling seeds Hyderabad: The National Seed Association of India, which represents the majority of the cotton seed companies in the country, has blamed Mahyco Monsanto and Monsanto India for widespread resistance developed by pink bollworm to Bollgard-II, the second-generation genetically modified cotton seed technology. The association has threatened to stop selling the seeds developed with BG-II technology if the two...

-Livemint.com Farm activists, environmentalists spar with pesticide companies over cause of more than 40 deaths Mumbai: The deaths of over 40 farmers and farm workers in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region since July has put the spotlight on the abuse of pesticides and lack of protection for those spraying them, even as a committee investigating the case prepares to submit its findings this week. A seven-member special investigation team (SIT) formed by the Maharashtra government...

-Deccan Chronicle The slogan was that there would never again be scarcity of food because we can now make “bread from air”. There are two distinct futures of food and farming. One leads to a dead end. A dead planet: poisons and chemical monocultures spreading; farmers committing suicide due to debt for seeds and chemicals; children dying due to lack of food; people dying because of chronic diseases spreading due to nutritionally empty, toxic...