concerns over a possible attack of Ug99 on wheat crops in Pakistan is soaring high. But officials in the country have said the globetrotting infectious wheat fungus has not reached croplands there.

Ug99's symptoms are dark orange pustules on the stems and the leaves. Stems can be completely girdled by the pustules damaging the tissue and preventing grain fill. This can bring in yield losses of up to 70 per cent. The disease is so strong that it can even wipe out fields. If the stem rust arrives early in the growing cycle, losses are higher.

Maybe there is. How about a fresh, ripe tomato grown with seawater? Italian researchers report that the nutritional content of tomatoes

The Lucknow-based National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) is developing a genetically modified (GM) cotton for resisting the incidence of sucking pests, which Bt cotton has failed to encounter. "NBRI has been working for development of novel delta endotoxins and transgenic cotton for resistance to cotton bollworms and sucking pests. A chimeric and endotoxin gene Cry 1 EC was designed at NBRI to target a common Indian pest, Spodoptera litura. It has been deployed in several crop plants, including cotton, groundnut, tomato, and chickpea.

Even under adverse conditions, Punjab farmers have produced bumper crop Farmers of the state epitomise the true Punjabi spirit. Producing bumper crop year after year and surpassing national average have become a habit for Punjab, right from the days of Green Revolution. Punjab alone produces nearly 20 per cent of the entire country's wheat. The spirit and the hard work put in by the Punjab farmers have firmed up country's food security even under adverse conditions of inclement weather, militancy, diseases, pest attacks or drought.

The US envoy to Japan, Ambassador J Thomas Schieffer has exhorted Japan, which imports 60% of its caloric intake, to embrace biotech crops to ensure its food security or face the risk of being left behind as other Asian powers like China and India are aggressively seizing the biotechnology advantage. Most Japanese consumers are reluctant to have biotech foods