Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Criminalizing dissent and attacking freedom of expression in India...

Before being voted out of office last year, India’s Congress-led United Progressive Alliance administration sanctioned open-field trials of GM food crops in India and Monsanto’s share prices rocketed. This decision prompted Rajesh Krishnan of the Coalition for a GM Free India to state that the government was against the interest of citizens, farmers and the welfare of the nation. He went on to state that the government had decided to work hand in glove with the multinational GM seed industry that stood to gain immensely from the open field trails. Since then, the Modi-led administration has continued the policy to drive GMOs into India.

Writing in The Hindu last year, Aruna Rodrigues noted that the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report (FR) is the fourth official report exposing the lack of integrity, independence and scientific expertise in assessing GMO risk (see here). The four reports are: The ‘Jairam Ramesh Report’ of February 2010, imposing an indefinite moratorium on Bt Brinjal, overturning the apex Regulator’s approval to commercialise it; the Sopory Committee Report (August 2012); the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) Report on GM crops (August 2012) and the TEC Final Report (June-July 2013).

The TEC recommended an indefinite moratorium on the field trials of GM crops until the government devised a proper regulatory and safety mechanism. No such mechanism exists, but open field trials are being given the go ahead, regardless of a history of blatant violations of biosafety norms, hasty approvals, a lack of monitoring abilities, general apathy towards the hazards of contamination and a lack of institutional oversight mechanisms. Full story...

Related posts:
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  2. Modi's popularity in rural India punctured by discontent, suicides...
  3. Monsanto’s man in India...
  4. Arundhati Roy: Beware the ‘gush-up gospel’ behind India’s billionaires...
  5. India "up for sale" to western corporate capital...
  6. Feeding the vultures while agriculture starves: capitalism’s great Indian con-trick
  7. Monsanto caused 291,000 suicides in India...
  8. Capitulating to Monsanto and Wall Street: What future for India?

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