Misleading the public on safety of genetically modified crops or organisms without scientific evidence would not be made a punishable offence, the government has decided following concerns raised by some scientists and civil society groups. A relevant clause to this effect in the proposed Bill to set up the National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority has been dropped, government sources have told The Indian Express. The NBRA is being established to approve...

Maheshwar (Khargone district, M.P.): “ Hamaari ladaai vikas se nahi, visthaapan se hai [Our fight is against displacement, not development],” Radhe Shyam Patidar of Pathrad village says, with a hint of aggression visible in the wrinkles around his ageing eyes. “We are only demanding proper rehabilitation for our village and we will not back down on that,” he says. Interestingly, whether the Maheshwar dam project, India's first privately financed hydroelectric project,...

A team of experts from the Indian government has released a damning report on the activities of FTSE 100 company Vedanta Resources, and its plans to mine for bauxite on tribal land in Orissa, India. The report says Vedanta has broken the law and appears to have violated a Supreme Court order. It concludes that the company’s proposed bauxite mine ‘may lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh as a...

Saying that the biotech bill is all 'wrong and retrogressive', Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cautioning him not to introduce the 'draconian' bill in parliament. In the letter dated March 11, of which IANS has a copy, the party's national secretary vehemently criticised the bill's main proposal to set up the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) under the ambit of...

Once India sold poverty to foreigners; now it’s being asked to export its top anti-poverty scheme. Five foreign governments have asked the Centre to help them replicate the rural job scheme in their countries, officials have said. South Africa was the first to have shown interest in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India’s “cushion for poor people’’ in the words of the World Bank. The other four too are African...