Genetically modified cotton — commonly termed Bt cotton — has been a blessing, according to a senior government official. The country has generated an additional income of Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 12,000 crore annually because of its higher yield, J N Singh, joint secretary in the Union textiles ministry, told Business Standard. According to official figures, 80 per cent of the overall cotton crop is from Bt seeds.

Leading European retailers and brands such as H&M, C&A and Tchibo have unknowingly been selling certified organic cotton clothing contaminated with genetically modified cotton from India, in a suspected fraud that is certain to shake consumer confidence in organic. The scale of the alleged fraud uncovered by the German edition of the Financial Times newspaper is shocking - if it’s accurate. Lothar Kruse, a director of the independent testing laboratory Impetus in Bremerhaven, who examined the cotton fabrics claimed around ”30% of the tested samples” contained genetically modified (GM) cotton. The head of the Indian agricultural authority, Apeda, Sanjay Dave, told the newspaper they were dealing with fraud on ”a gigantic scale.”

India’s biotech ”queen” Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon Tuesday appealed for considering the issue of Bt brinjal cultivation on a scientific basis and not on ”unfounded fears”. [...] The chairperson of Karnataka Vision Group for BT said the industry had fully understood its responsibility and would never develop a technology that was unsafe for human consumption.

Activists wearing brinjal-shaped masks marched into the Erragadda Rythu Bazar on Tuesday morning to raise awareness among vendors and consumers on Bt Brinjal, a genetically-modified strain created by agriculture company Monsanto. The campaign, organised jointly by the Greenpeace and the GM (genetic modification) - Free Coalition of India, sought to boost awareness on Bt Brinjal before a consultation on the modified plant to be held in the city on January 22.

Differences have surfaced between Union government ministers over who clears Bt brinjal, India’s first genetically modified food crop.

After food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar told reporters on Wednesday that an expert committee, and not the Centre, had the final say over vetting the vegetable, environment minister Jairam Ramesh voiced dissent on Thursday.

On Wednesday, chief minister BS Yeddyurappa hinted at a ban on the genetically-modified vegetable. ”The state is the fifth largest producer of brinjal in the country. We are growing more than 40 varieties of brinjal. We will not allow anything that may put our farmers in a difficult spot,” said the chief minister.

At a time when the proposed open field trials of Bt brinjal are drawing loud protests, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to detail the steps it has put in place to protect India’s traditional crops from possible contamination by field trials of genetically modified seeds. When additional solicitor general Vivek Tankha tried to assure the court that there were adequate rules and regulations in place and that the Centre would take two weeks to file its response, a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices J M Panchal and B S Chauhan said in India the rules mostly get confined to the books.

Participating in a consultation organised by the union environment ministry in Bhubaneswar, the scientific community said it wanted a thorough study. ”We need in-depth study before the introduction of BT Brinjal. The study which has been conducted so far is limited,” said Madan Mohan Panda, the director of research at Orissa University of Agriculture and Research.

Monsanto will gross roughly Rs 340 crore [appr. 53 mill EUR] from licensing its proprietary Bollgard (BG) gene traits to Bt cotton hybrid seed firms in India this fiscal. In the recent 2009 planting season, [...] 250 lakh incorporated Monsanto’s BG-I or the second-generation BG-II gene constructs.

Kerala, in spite of being a biodiversity hotspot, has been sidelined by the Union Government in the Bt brinjal consultations being held across the various states in country. The consultations are aimed at giving the public a forum where meaningful debate can take place before a final decision on the introduction of Bt brinjal is taken.