The Union Government has prepared the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, 2001 (BRAI in brief) for the regulation of the biotechnology sector in India. While the need for strong and careful regulation certainly exists keeping in view the serious threats posed to health and environment by the genetically modified (GM) crops, the BRAI can actually increase this threat by paving the way for the rapid spread of GM crops...

The global 'farmland grab' in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa has become competitive, with companies from Asia, including India and China, joining it. AN extraordinary new process has been at work in the past few years: the aggressive entry of Indian corporations into the markets for agricultural land in Africa. At one level, this process is simply following the hoary old tradition in global capitalism of firms (often supported...

Karnataka: The report of the Task Force on encroachment of government land is likely to suffer a silent death. IT was clear to V. Balasubramanian, the Chairman of the Task Force for Recovery of Public Land and its Protection, when he submitted his report on encroachment of government land that it would ruffle quite a few feathers in the political and bureaucratic echelons of Karnataka. What he was unprepared for...

The Supreme Court criticises the Chhattisgarh and Central governments and orders the disbanding of Salwa Judum. THE case Nandini Sundar vs State of Chhattisgarh arose out of a writ petition (civil) filed in 2007 in the Supreme Court by Nandini Sundar, a Professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics; Ramachandra Guha, a historian; and E.A.S. Sarma, former Secretary to Government of India and former Commissioner, Tribal Welfare, Government...

In the past 50 years or so, we have come face to face with unusual climatic occurrences, weather changes and environmental disasters. These are a corollary of the global pursuit of rapid growth, in particular rapid growth of industrialisation, and very often the mindless and predatory exploitation of natural resources. These have happened across the world, without distinguishing between rich and poor nations... In the increasingly integrated world that we live...