the Union ministry of health and family welfare (moh&fw), on March 10, 2006, accepted the Indian Council for Medical Research's (icmr) recommendations on labelling genetically modified (gm) food. This is the first decisive move towards a gm food regime in the country. But the wisdom of the move has been questioned. While some have welcomed it, others say it is retrograde because the new regime will make it impossible in future to ban gm food, which raises serious health questions. The Central Committee for Food Standards, a statutory body under Prevention of Food Adulteration (pfa) Act, 1954, had asked for recommendations from icmr, so that pfa rules could be amended to incorporate gm labelling.

According to trade analyst Ranjan Kumar, "Labelling gm food in India is important since it imports considerable corn and soybean.' India had imported two million tonnes of soya oil in 2004-05. But farmer leader Vijay Jawandhia thinks the move is clearly an approval for all gm food imports. He says, "Though gm food existed in the Indian shelves when quantitative restriction on food imports was lifted in 2001, it had no legal acceptance and could have been banned easily. But these new rules mean India is accepting gm food for public consumption. This will promote foreign agribusiness.' gm contamination is also suspected in other imported products like tomato juice, tomato ketchups and potato chips.

The new rules will also expedite promotion of domestic manufacturing of gm food. Cotton being the only legal gm crop in India, the only domestically produced food product with possible gm content is vegetable oil