The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...

Citing violation of a host of environmental laws, a government-appointed expert panel has recommended that Vedanta Resources should not be allowed to go ahead with its proposed bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri hills area of Kalahandi and Rayagada districts in Orissa. A decision on this will be taken by the Ministry of Environment and Forests later this month. The expert panel, headed by Naresh C Saxena, a retired IAS officer who...

EVEN as the fate of Bt brinjal hangs in balance, the parliamentary standing committee attached to the agriculture ministry has started examining the pros and cons of introducing genetically-modified food in India, with a panel of experts coming out in favour of setting up a regulatory mechanism to monitor their implications. At the first meeting of the parliamentary panel on the sensitive subject here this afternoon, three experts, including Delhi...

This National Advisory Council might not be as powerful as its namesake and as freewheeling in its mandate, but it will oversee the implementation of the Right to Education, the single most important intervention in the field of education since independence. HRD minister Kapil Sibal, who will be the ex-officio chairperson of this 14-member NAC, has cleared the names of eight members. They are Kiran Karnik, former president of NASSCOM;...

EVEN AS BP battles to check the damage caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, India is showing how far it is from recovering from its own worst industrial accident. A group of government ministers appointed to suggest remedies for the disaster in 1984 at Bhopal, in central India, made its recommendations on June 21st. It urged the government to step up its efforts to extradite Warren...