The Southern Action on Genetic Engineering has urged the authorities to declare Mysore a ‘GMO-Free City’ in keeping with its heritage character and to safeguard the agricultural biodiversity of the region. A memorandum addressed to the Mysore City Corporation was released at a programme here on Saturday.

Farmers came together Wednesday with scientists and agri-biotech industry to demand the second green revolution in India. [...] Families of Bt cotton seed farmers are increasingly enjoying a higher standard of living - purchasing cars, motorcycles, building pucca and larger houses, enrolling their children in English medium schools, or sending them abroad for education, investing in agricultural land, and farm equipments like tractors, drip irrigation, pipeline, tube wells and more.

The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, which had granted sanction for the field trial of genetically-modified rubber, is now having a rethink on the trial protocol, that was intended for seasonal GM crops rather than trees with a much longer life as in the case of rubber. [...] The GEAC has now asked the Department of Biotechnology as well as the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation that monitors the safety aspects of GM crops to ’re-examine the matter taking into consideration the biology of the rubber plant and intended use’. It may be recalled that the Coalition for GM-Free India had pointed out the dangers of using a protocol developed for seasonal plants being used in the case of rubber, which is much more complex and with different type of interaction with the eco-system.

Greenpeace India, an independent environmental organisation, has sought public consultation on the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India bill, 2011. [...] ”The bill is not transparent and a threat to our food,” said Rajesh Krishnan, an agriculture campaigner with Greenpeace India. [...] The BRAI bill is also termed unconstitutional because it allegedly takes away the right of the state to intervene. [...] Krishnan alleged that the BRAI bill is also overriding the RTI Act. ”The proposed bill states biological assessment and other information will not be given out as it will be a commercially confidential information. So, the public will not get any information related to GM crops,” said Krishnan.

Across the world, there is huge controversy around the introduction of genetically modified/engineered crops. On one hand there are a few biotech crop developers and scientists recommending the use of GM technology as solution for food security and on other there are concerns about its impact on human health, environment and socioeconomy.

[...] One of the major concerns about GM crops is that they only serve the purpose of multinational seed giants. All GM technologies come along with Intellectual Property Rights and patent tags of multinational seed companies which would ensure their monopolies as has happened in the case of Bt cotton, the only GM crop commercially cultivated in India.

Even as the area around Parliament was swamped by crowds of Anna Hazare’s supporters, demanding a stronger Lokpal Bill on Wednesday, a small group of environmental activists staged their own demonstration against a different bill, the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, 2011. [...] Activists say that since the Science and Technology Ministry’s Biotechnology Department is mandated to promote the technology, it would be a conflict of interest if it was also responsible for regulating it and ensuring biotech safety.

American seed giant Monsanto and its Indian collaborator, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company are to be prosecuted for allegedly ‘stealing’ indigenous plant material for developing genetically modified brinjal variety known as Bt brinjal. The National Biodiversity Authority, a statutory body set up under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, has decided to initiate legal proceedings against the two companies and their collaborators for using indigenous brinjal germplasm without necessary permission.

The state government has written to the environment ministry rejecting trials of GM rice crops in the state that is known as the diversity bowl of rice in the country. After Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, Chhattisgarh now becomes the fourth state to object to GM trials. Objections from state governments are bound to make business difficult for GM crop promoters with the environment ministry’s clearance wing - Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee - making it mandatory for companies to get approvals from the state before they begin trials.

On Quit India Day this year, thousands of Indians vowed to uphold the country’s food and seed sovereignty and resist the increasing corporate takeover of agriculture. From remote tribal hamlets in Orissa to kasbah towns across the country to the national capital, more than a hundred events were organized by civil society groups and concerned individuals to highlight the peril to India’s Food, Farmers and Freedom.

The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and several NGOs took out a protest on Tuesday against US genetically-modified seed producer Monsanto. They took out their protest on the lines of the ‘Quit India Movement’ launched by Mahatma Gandhi against the British on August 9, 1942, and asked Monsanto to stop its activities in the country and quit India. NGO representatives told mediapersons at Gujarat Vidyapeeth that if Monsanto gets total control over the country’s agriculture, it will begin interfering in the political affairs and virtually become another ‘East India Company’.