NOTE: The launch in India of a supposedly "indigenous" Bt cotton variety, called 'Bikaneri Narma', was greeted as a huge success for the public sector and as an example of how GM crops could be developed independently of multinational corporations like Monsanto and their intellectual property stranglehold over farmers. 

Here, we were told, was an "entirely indigenous" Bt cotton variety whose seeds farmers could replant – thanks to a decade or more of heavy investment by the Government of India and the Rockefeller Foundation. Bikaneri Narma came out of the research of India's University of Agricultural Sciences in collaboration with India's Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI). And Bikaneri Narma was even marketed by the public sector Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). 

Kavitha Kuruganti of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture, who has been flagging up this story for a year or more, has pointed out that a damaging technology like genetic engineering can't be transformed just by having its products served up by the public sector as "indigenous". Kavitha also says, "The government better answer why crores of rupees are being spent on GM crop development in this country, diverting much-needed resources from proven, safe, farmer-controlled technologies!"
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Hyped ‘desi Bt’ cotton has Monsanto gene, govt stops production
The Indian Express, December 29 2011
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hyped-desi-bt-cotton-has-monsanto-gene-govt-stops-production/893287/|

India's claim of having developed its own Bt cotton (genetically modified) variety has taken an embarrassing turn with an RTI inquiry by two scientists revealing how the University of Agriculture Sciences (UAS) at Dharwad went ahead – brushing aside all precautions – to produce an indigenous variety working on a gene originally patented by Monsanto.

Finding this out, in 2009, the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) had even decided to stop the sale of Bikaneri Narma Bt Cotton – touted as an “completely indigenous Bt variety” – and halt its sale in the domestic market. Bikaneri Narma was released for farmers as BN Bt by Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) in 2009. It was called an indigenous Bt “variety” as distinct from the Monsanto hybrid where farmers have to buy fresh seeds each season. Farmers could re-use BN Bt for many years.

Yesterday, at a special ICAR meeting, a decision was reportedly taken to stop production of Bn Bt. When contacted, ICAR’s DDG S K Dutta, who stopped commercial sale of Bn Bt in 2009, declined to comment.

Records obtained by scientists Mansoor and Surendra under RTI and accessed by The Indian Express, show that elements of Monsanto’s Cry1Ac gene was detected in the BN Bt varieties developed by UAS. A probe has been ordered by the Karnataka government and by the vice-chancellor of UAS.

It was in 2005 that UAS’s principal scientist I S Kategari had claimed to have successfully introduced the gene in Bikaneri Narma, claiming that it was the “truncated” Cry1Ac gene. Records show that at a meeting on May 21, 2008, ICAR deputy director-general P L Gautam said that the presence of elements of Monsanto’s gene wasn’t an issue and cleared its commercialisation. Incidentally, Ananda Kumar, of the New Delhi-based National Research Centre for Plant Biotechnology, had said that there could have been contamination with elements of the Monsanto gene but added that his tests had not found any presence of these elements.