US seeds giant Monsanto Co agreed to give a royalty-free licence of its genetically modified (GM) papaya to the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University on Tuesday. [...] The papaya licence is valid for 10 years. After that, ”whether it will be royalty-free or not will be decided by both the parties after the expiry of the licence,” said Sekhar Nataranjan, chairman of Monsanto India Ltd.

Heritage and the humble brinjal have come in conflict in India’s southern Karnataka state, with the controversy even threatening to halt a US funded biotechnology project. [...] But Ramesh Bhat, one of India’s leading biologists and former deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, [...] says field trials of Bt-brinjal carry the danger of the Bt gene contaminating the native variety of brinjal called Mattu gulla which people consider ’sacred’ because its seeds were reportedly given to the people of Mattu village by the 15th century Hindu saint Vadiraja.

Improving wheat production sustainability in north-west India through the use of biotechnology is the focus of a joint, three-day Indian-Australian workshop commencing today at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Conference Centre in Delhi. [...] In his opening remarks, the Australian High Commissioner to India, John McCarthy, said the workshop will form the basis of a joint ICAR-ACIAR collaborative five-year program on marker-assisted breeding in wheat in a range of applications to improve disease resistance, drought and temperature tolerance and quality of wheat.

Riding on the Bt Cotton wave, India is leading a biotech revolution in the world. If the trend in countries like India and China are any indication, Asia will be the leader in biotech cultivation in the next 10 years. According to a report from International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), India replaced China as the world’s top grower of genetically modified (GM) cotton (Bt Cotton) in 2006. [...] The success story of Bt Cotton turns into a tragedy in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh. For farmers in this district - a major cotton producing area - Bt Cotton has brought in doom.

India’s rice fields are witnessing a strange battle now - a fight of the traditional versus the modern. While the genetically modified (GM) crops represent the modern, the age old methods and seeds of the common Indian farmer stand for the traditional side. The war recently took an ugly turn when farmers in Haryana and Tamil Nadu destroyed the filed trial plots of the GM rice. The farmers were protesting against the sly move to introduce the genetically modified rice variety into the country.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has turned down the request of Sungro Seeds Research Ltd for largescale field trials of its six Bt brinjal hybrids. Sungro Seeds has developed six Bt brinjal, namely – SBJ 1 Bt, SBJ 2 Bt, SBJ 4 Bt, SBJ 6 Bt, SBJ 7 Bt and SBJ 8 Bt. The GEAC, in this context, noted that as these transgenic brinjals were developed by transfer of Bt brinjal event developed by Mahyco and ”as Mahyco’s Bt brinjal is still under review, the present request cannot be considered at this stage.”

Scientists and economists today slammed the Centre for failing to formulate a policy on genetically modified seeds and crops. They are concerned that only when problems arise ~ such as Chinese GM crops and seeds finding their way illegally into India through Nepal ~ does it sit down to structure policy.

The ministry of commerce and industry has lifted the ban on import of edible oil sourced from genetically modified (GM) oilseeds. The move has come due to the country’s failure to meet the demands in the domestic market. India is the world’s leading importer of edible oils.

In a move that’s likely to have a significant bearing on the food processing industry, the Government has allowed processed food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and exempted it from regulatory approval. The Ministry of Environment and Forests issued a notification on September 11 that grants exemption to foodstuff whose end-products are not Living Modified Organisms (LMOs) — living organisms can be used to propagate or reproduce, like in seeds.

Distress in Cotton cultivation is extended its boundaries and reached to Cotton seed production. The area under Cotton seed production is on a shrinking trend. This can be attributed to the exploitive nature of companies. Farmer both as a consumer and producer of seed is exploited by the seed companies. Farmer as a consumer of seed has to pay more price and inturn he is getting less price for his seeds. To get maximum yields companies promoting input intensive methods in seed production. These methods increases cost of cultivation and made seed production labor intensive activity. After a tedious work cotton growers getting very little profits which lead the farmers into distress.