Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has stepped in to make it clear that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh will not have the last word on the introduction of Bt Brinjal or any GM (genetically modified) food.
Gurgaon: Even as the controversy surrounding genetically modified Bt brinjal refuses to die down, it has now come to light that farmers in and around Gurgaon are using alcohol to increase the yield of brinjal crop.
National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI) aims to transform the agri-food sector into a globally rewarding and sustainable biotechnology-based enterprise through innovative solutions in primary and secondary agriculture, said its spokesperson Dr Jagdeep Singh on Thursday.
New Delhi: Amid a raging controversy over allowing the commercial use of Bt brinjal, Congress has sided with environment minister Jairam Ramesh at the expense of science and technology minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Forget those images of ravaged villagers, kids with distended bellies and ragged clothes and a future as grim as the cracked, sun-baked earth. Islands of poverty still exist but most of rural India is transformed beyond imagination thanks to a host of factors which has put unprecedented wealth into the hands of farmers across the country and turned it into a huge consumer market.
Jairam Ramesh today led another line of assault, saying government scientists who had dared to oppose the introduction of Bt brinjal were being harassed. At the same time, senior agricultural scientists have started to openly attack Ramesh on the decision.
The research isn't unequivocal and hasn't been publicly-funded either - given the concerns, it's not worth the risk
Sunita Narain / New Delhi February 12, 2010, 0:40 IST
