The recent one-day strike by the fishermen community in some coastal states and the demonstration staged near the Parliament House in Delhi are a measure of how incensed the community is over the proposed new Central legislation to regulate marine fisheries in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Marine Fisheries (Regulation and Management) Bill, 2009, the draft of which has been circulated to states prior to its introduction in...

While the jury is still out on whether Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh did the right thing by putting a moratorium on the use of Bt brinjal, or whether he simply played to the gallery by only taking into account the concerns of the Environmentalists, policy-makers need to ponder over some other implications. The introduction of Bt cotton, for instance, led to production more than doubling between 2002-03 and 2007-08, from...

In April last year, the Supreme Court, in response to a public interest litigation filed by the Gene Campaign (whose convenor is the internationally known geneticist Dr Suman Sahai), directed the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to consider the toxicity and allergenicity of GM crops and to post the relevant material on the web so that independent experts could examine these. The Supreme Court asked the GEAC to study also...

Two unique languages disappear with death of last speakers When Boro died on Strait Island last November, Boa lost a friend. The world lost a language. Last week, Boa also died. Another language died with her. The death of these last surviving speakers of two Great Andamanese languages, Khora and Bo, has resulted in the extermination of their unique tribes on the islands. “There are just 50 Great Andamanese left,” says...

Social networks like the twitter are abuzz with thought for food, and the Greenpeace India is preparing to cook world’s biggest ‘baigan bharta,’ to create public opinion against genetically modified crops. While the debate over the Bt. Brinjal heats up, the case of the humble ‘baigan’ is widely seen as the precursor for a flood of GM crops. (See links below for a wider picture). The Greenpeace has launched an on-line...