1.Expert complains to PM on biotech bill
2.Super crop or super flop?
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1.Expert complains to PM on biotech bill
Rashme Sehgal
Deccan Chronicle, December 31 2011
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/north/expert-complains-pm-biotech-bill-704

New Delhi – Renowned biologist and former vice-chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, Dr Pushpa Bhargava, has written a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singhagainst the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill describing it as "unethical and unconstitutional and lacking in scientific sense".

The bill, to have been placed in the Winter Session of Parliament, has stated that information declared by the BRAI as "confidential, commercial information" cannot come under the RTI Act [The Right to Information Act, which allows citizens to request information from public authorities].

Its definition of biotechnology excludes key areas such as immuno-technology, stem cells and nano-biotechnology which are all an integral part of modern biotechnology.

"Even more surprising, every university teaching these techniques will have to get BRAI permission for teaching them to undergraduate and postgraduate students," Dr Bhargava pointed out.

No civil society participation has been proposed and the Biotechnolgoy Regulatory Appellate Tribunal will not accept complaints from the civil society even though they will be most affected by these products.
Worse, the bill was unconstitutional because although agriculture was a state subject, the bill will take away from the state government, the authority to take decisions on GM plant products.

Dr Bhargava highlighted how when Mr Jairam Ramesh was minister for environment and forests, 10 states had written to the Prime Minister that they will not allow their states to grow Bt brinjal.

The bill has made the convener of the selection committee for members of BRAI to be nominated from the Department of Biotechnology which is a vendor of genetic engineering. Nor did it make labeling of GM food products mandatory and offered no protection to farmers whose fields get contaminated with a GM product.
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2.Super crop or super flop?
Shabina Akhtar
The Telegraph (India), 25 January 2012
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120125/jsp/opinion/story_15050980.jsp

*The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill has given rise to a storm of criticism. Shabina Akhtar finds out why the bill is being lambasted from all sides

Ankathi Rajamani, a farmer from Andhra Pradesh's Warangal district, has been cultivating cotton for the past decade. She began to use Bt cotton (genetically modified cotton seeds) six years ago in the hope that she would get better yields. “The first year the yield was really good. But as time passed, the yield started going down. As a result, the profits kept plummeting as well,” she says. Her woes increased when labourers refused to pick cotton from her field. The cotton balls were giving them rashes, they said, and they demanded extra money to pay for doctors' fees. With four of her sheep too dying mysteriously after grazing in her field, Rajamani is now desperate to go back to non-Bt cotton seeds.

Rajamani's case is just one of the many fallouts and ramifications of cultivating genetically modified (GM) crops in India. The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, which was to be tabled in the winter session of Parliament, could have looked into these issues. However, there has been a storm of criticism against the bill, which, critics say, will only promote the indiscriminate cultivation of GM crops. As a result, the BRAI Bill, which has been hanging fire since 2009, has once again been put on hold.

One of the key features of the bill is the setting up of the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI), which will replace the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), currently the country’s apex regulatory body for GM crops. BRAI will be responsible for regulating and monitoring the research, transport, import, manufacture and use of organisms and their products so as to ensure human and animal health safety along with the protection of the environment.

But according to activists, the bill has so many flaws that it fails to establish BRAI as an effective regulatory body. "The bill is unconstitutional, unethical, unscientific, self-contradictory and non people-oriented. In its current form it has too many flaws," says Pushpa M. Bhargava, former director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.

What's more, the definition of biotechnology in the bill also leaves a lot to be desired, say the experts. "The definition of modern biotechnology as specified in Section 3(r) of the bill excludes such areas as peptide synthesis, immuno-technology, tissue culture, stem cells and nano-biotechnology – all of which are an integral part of today’s biotechnology," asserts Kamyani (she is known by her first name), a Mumbai-based lawyer.

Others feel that the bill does not contain enough deterrents or penal clauses to check malpractice and irresponsible conduct on the part of GM crop developers. Kamyani agrees. "The bill lacks deterrent mechanisms to prevent irresponsible action by GM crop developers. It also lacks redressal mechanisms whereby farmers or consumers can be compensated for damages whether deliberate or otherwise caused by the long-term effects of GM crops."

And yet, the punishment meted out to anyone who is perceived to have made false statements about GM crops is pretty stiff. "Article 62 of the bill lays down that anyone making a statement about GM crop which BRAI deems to be false or misleading, shall be punished with imprisonment up to three months and also with a fine which may extend to Rs 5 lakh," says Supreme Court counsel Raghavesh Singh Singh.

That's not all. Singh points out that Section 28 of the BRAI Bill classifies some information as confidential, which cannot be supplied even under the Right to Information Act. "If this legislation gets enacted, there is no way civil society can challenge the decision of BRAI to keep some information confidential," he says. Adds Kamyani, "Earlier, on a petition filed by Greenpeace seeking information related to Bt brinjal, the apex court had ordered the regulators to put out all the bio-safety data in the public domain. The new provision seems to be a deliberate attempt on the part of industry to scuttle public scrutiny."

The composition of the BRAI is another sticking point. It is supposed to comprise three full-time and two part-time members. Moreover, it is to be supported by a risk assessment unit, an enforcement unit, a monitoring office, a product ruling committee, an environment appraisal panel, scientific advisory panels, an inter-ministerial governing board, a Biotechnology Advisory Council, and also State Biotechnology Regulatory Advisory Committees. "All these bodies would have only bureaucrats who are likely to have little knowledge of the issues that arise in today's biotechnology," points out Bhargava.

There are also concerns that the BRAI will encroach into the rights of the states to deal with matters related to health and agriculture. As Bhargava stresses, "The bill is unconstitutional as agriculture is a state subject. Once BRAI gets implemented, anything related to GM crops would come under the purview of the central body created by the bill."

In fact, states like Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha have openly expressed their apprehension about the law. Ramkrishna Kusmaria, Madhya Pradesh’s agriculture minister, went so far as to write to the Union science and technology minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, stating his concern. "States have the Constitutional right to decide on subjects like health and agriculture. The BRAI Bill, regarding which I have drawn the Centre’s attention earlier, violates this right, thereby compromising the states’ autonomy," he stated in his letter.

Nitin Masilamani, patent attorney and principal associate with Amarchand and Mangaldas and Suresh A. Shroff & Co., however, feels that the furore over the rights of states being compromised is overdone. "Nowhere is it being said that growing GM crops is compulsory. It's up to the state. So why this hue and cry," he asks.

Others feel that despite some shortcomings, the BRAI Bill is not all gloom and doom. "It not as bad as activists are making it out to be," holds Professor C. Kameswara Rao, executive secretary, Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education, Bangalore. "There is nothing patently wrong with BRAI. Under the current GEAC, all biotechnology products go through the same system. Under the new bill there is agriculture, medicine and industry, and each stream has its own regulatory process, which is a big improvement," he says.

Masilamani agrees. "BRAI will definitely be a better option than the GEAC. And if at all there are some problems, then it would be best to get the law implemented and then iron out the loopholes by making amendments."

But with the bill getting stuck each time it is about to be introduced in Parliament, it doesn't look likely that this law will be passed anytime soon.