Environmental group Greenpeace on Tuesday urged the Tamil Nadu Government to ban Genetically Modified (GM) food items in the state, saying they would adversely affect the health of the people and the state of agriculture. Talking to newspersons here, Jai Krishna, Sustainable Agriculture campaigner for Greenpeace said the GM foods were scientifically acknowledged as health hazards and have been shown to cause, allergies, liver and kidney toxicity, immune disorders and retarded growth.

After the recent announcement by Anbumani Ramadoss, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, that he would not let GM foods enter India, Pushpa Bhargava, member of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) and leading molecular biologist, has in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, urged a ban on all GM foods being imported into the country, until proper safurged a ban on all GM foods being imported into the country, until proper safety research was done on them.

While no scientific research has been done on the latest reports of allergies, the deputy managing director of Mahyco Monsanto Biotech, Raj Ketkar, says the technology has to go through rigorous allergy tests before getting approval. [...] ”Around the world this technology has been grown for twelve years and we have not had any instances of animals or people having any type of allergic reaction.” [...] But there are still many activists opposed to GM crops in India. Some argue there is a direct link between the thousands of suicides among cotton farmers in Maharashtra and the introduction of BT cotton in the area.

Opposing any type of trial-runs of genetically modified seeds in the state, the CPI(M) led LDF government in Kerala has asked the Centre to declare the State as ’G M free’ State in the country. It was the government’s declared policy that genetically modified seeds would not be allowed to be cultivated either on experimental basis or otherwise in the state, Agriculture Minister Mullakara Ratnakaran told the Assembly while replying to a submission.

Genetically-modified (GM) potatoes are likely to be on your plates soon. The Shimla-based Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI) has developed GM potato varieties with the Ama1 gene acclaimed for improved nutritional efficiency, that with RB gene for late blight resistance, and along with the Bt potato for insect resistance. The institute has also developed transgenic potatoes for reduction of cold-induced sweetening.

India’s parliament will soon be scrutinizing a bill intended to help publicly funded institutes and universities commercialize their research. India’s science minister, Kapil Sibal, is confident that the bill will become law and will help Indian universities ”make millions through patents”. But the bill has been pushed through without an open debate and is not publicly available, prompting concern. ”In a democracy you cannot bulldoze a bill like this,” says Pushpa Bhargava, former vice-chair of the National Knowledge Commission.

The environment ministry might be planning to bring genetically modified (GM) crops like Bt Brinjal to your plate but Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has promised to ”continue to oppose” GM foods. Ramadoss, in a meeting with hundreds of farmers organised by his party PMK in Kancheepuram town of Tamil Nadu last week, promised to resist the entry of GM foods for common use.

The Andhra Pradesh farmers has long been the symbol of distress in rural India. But this year, cotton farmers in the state have enjoyed the most productive season ever. [...] Interestingly B-T cotton, which has been blamed for the farmer suicides in the state - may just have done the trick.

U.S. biotech company Monsanto Co hopes to gain regulatory approvals to commercialize some varieties of its biotech corn in India in about five years, a company official said on Thursday. ”There is a fundamental (amount of) time that is required for crops to be evaluated ... We can be in the four-year time frame, but my guess is we will be in the five-year time frame on this one,” Sekhar Natarajan, head of Monsanto’s Indian operations, said in an interview with Reuters.

After imposing a ban on smoking in public, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss is working towards banning genetically modified (GM) seeds. [...] ”As the Union Health Minister, I will continue opposing it. BT Brinjal is being brought into the country without proper research on its safety. We should oppose it collectively,” Ramadoss says. [...] Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, however, is well known for his advocacy of GM food.