Almost three years after a genetically-engineered variety of brinjal (Bt brinjal) was put on indefinite hold — putting a question mark on the fate of genetically-modified crops in India — the gover

A PIPE DREAM SC panel pushes for a 10-year moratorium on open field trials

A 10-year blanket ban on field trials of genetically modified (termed Bt) crops, proposed by an expert committee set up by the Supreme Court, has set off alarm bells, especially in the cotton sector.

A senior government official said it would be like gifting a 10-year monopoly on Bt cotton to a single company, Monsanto, and clipping the wings of upcoming competitors, such as Bayer, Dow, DuPont and Syngenta, and some public sector companies.

Players with integration between clinical work and data are going to dominate the post-BPO scene

Regulators round the world have become increasingly concerned about pharmacovigilance, the post-marketing surveillance of a drug for its entire life. Quintiles is offering this service to customers across the globe. About 500 of Quintiles’s staff in India are engaged in this work; global staff in the same operation are also led from India. Work in India has grown in the last four-five years.

It contributed to a cumulative national farm income of $9.4 bn between 2002 and 2010

Bt cotton has delivered significant benefits to all members of the agricultural value chain in the country, and has contributed to a cumulative national farm income of about $9.4 billion between 2002 and 2010, turning India from an importer of cotton to an exporter, according to T M Manjunath, a consultant in agricultural biotechnology and integrated pest management.

The mechanism to regulate genetic engineering in agriculture is “generally sound”, the Prime Minister’s Scientific Advisory Committee has said.

The Prime Minister’s Office has asked the Environment Ministry to consider exempting construction of railway tracks, roads and power transmission lines from mandatory clearances under the Forest Ri

Strongly favouring GM crops, India’s top science advisory panel on Tuesday virtually questioned the moratorium on commercialisation of Bt brinjal and pitched for comprehensive reform of the biotechnology regulatory mechanism.

“The current regulatory system for recombinant products administered under Rules (1989) of Environment Protection Act, 1986, should be reformed till Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India is in place,” the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister (SAC-PM), chaired by eminent scientist C.N.R. Rao, said in a statement.

Countries that wait to ratify international protocols relating to bio-safety are keen to understand the complexity involved and take an informed decision.

A genetically modified cow whose milk lacks a substance that causes allergic reactions in people has been created by scientists in New Zealand.

In their first year of life, two or three in every hundred infants are allergic to a whey protein in milk called BLG. The researchers engineered the cow, called Daisy, to produce milk that doesn’t contain the protein. While the genetic alteration slashed levels of BLG protein in the cow’s milk to undetectable levels, it more than doubled the concentrations of other milk proteins called caseins.