-Business Standard Activists, others question yield and bio-safety data; GM mustard can improve yields by 25-30% After many ifs and buts, the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard seems to have reached a decisive phase after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommended on Thursday that it be allowed. The ministry of environment and forests will now decide on whether this herbicide-tolerant variety can become the first GM food crop to be...
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Aadhaar Exposed 4 Lakh 'Ghosts' In Mid-Day Meals? Claims May Not Add Up -Sreenivasan Jain
-NDTV NEW DELHI: Soon after the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) issued a notification making Aadhaar card mandatory for accessing mid-day meals, it released data claiming that thanks to Aadhaar, four lakh 'ghost' or duplicate students enrolled with the state education department had been detected. This discovery was used to bolster the government's defence that Aadhaar can help curb corruption in the school lunch scheme, and ward off criticism from critics...
More »India pushes GM’s frontier again with mustard, but what’s inside it? -Zia Haq
-Hindustan Times In Bollywood romcoms, mustard fields glowing iridescent yellow are an oft-used backdrop for romantic songs. Remember the iconic 1995 hit, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge Mustard, as it were, is an onscreen metaphor for vigour and youthful passion. However, looked through a farm scientist’s lens, the traditional Indian mustard isn’t genetically very impressive. It is only half as robustly growing as its east European cousins. Low yields mean India has to...
More »Eye on safety, Govt defers GM mustard decision -Amitabh Sinha & Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express Will not halt research but not rushing through decision, says Javadekar. HELPING THE government buy peace with activists protesting against granting clearance to the first transgenic food crop in the country, the biotechnology regulator on Friday deferred a decision on allowing the cultivation of a genetically-modified (GM) hybrid mustard. The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), a body under the Environment Ministry that regulates the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs),...
More »Neither BPL nor APL -Abhijit Sen
-The Indian Express Socio-Economic and Caste Census can help identify welfare beneficiaries without falling into a binary trap. The release earlier this month of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) has been followed by much media analysis. Some have expressed scepticism about what it shows and others have treated it as yet another set of numbers on how many are poor in India. It has also been variously hailed as revolutionising benefit...
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