The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) will probe an allegation that research on genetically modified brinjal initiated five years ago in India had violated a law that sought to protect the country’s genetic resources, NBA sources said. A non-government group in Bangalore has alleged that Indian crop scientists may have violated the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, through research involving local brinjal varieties and foreign technology without appropriate permission from the NBA....

It is surprising to see senior ministers of the government getting drawn into a bout of shadow-boxing over genetically-modified (GM) foods. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s decision to put a moratorium on Bt brinjal has got the goat of not just some GM businesses, but of some of his ministerial colleagues as well. Farm minister Sharad Pawar leads the charge. Science and technology minister Prithviraj Chavan and former S&T minister and...

Environmental groups have questioned assertions by sections of scientists and the biotechnology industry that genetically-modified (GM) food crops could play a crucial role in ensuring food security. More than 180 GM plants have so far been field tested in several countries, but few have progressed to the stage where commercial seed is available to farmers, the non-government Environmental network called Friends of the Earth (FoE) has said. “GM crops are...

India, the world’s second most populous country, announced today that it is coming on board the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) campaign to cover the world with billions of trees, pushing the total number planted so far to more than 10 billion since the movement started in 2006. The South Asian nation is one of the fastest-growing economies in the region and is among the world’s largest consumers of wood products....

Pushed to a corner by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s peremptory freeze on Bt brinjal, the UPA government took the first step of finding a way out. And it needed the authority of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to do that. In a clear enunciation of the government’s policy on GM crops — a policy that got clouded by Ramesh’s rhetoric — the Prime Minister underlined the importance of biotechnology in productivity...