Three and a half years ago, at a time when the controversy over the use of genetically modified seeds was raging across India, a newspaper [The Times of India] story painted a heartening picture of the technology’s success. “There are no suicides here and people are prospering on agriculture. The switchover from the conventional cotton to Bollgard or Bt Cotton here has led to a social and economic transformation in the villages [of Bhambraja and Antargaon] in the past three-four years.” So heartening was this account that nine months ago, the same story was run again in the same newspaper, word for word. Never mind that the villagers themselves had a different story to tell. “There have been 14 suicides in our village,” a crowd of agitated farmers in Bhambraja told shocked members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture in March this year. “Most of them after Bt came here.” The Hindu was able to verify nine that had occurred between 2003 and 2009.