NEW DELHI, Jun 22 (IPS) - Concerted campaigning by vigilant  international activists have thwarted this week approval for  commercial production of genetically modified (GM) cotton in  India, but the victory may be short-lived.

 For one thing, Mahyco-Monsanto has been asked to conduct  research trials for just one more year and lead campaigner,  Devinder Sharma, says the trans-national corporation is sure to  exert even more pressure on the government next time around.  

 ''It is a temporary victory gained only because Mahyco-Monsanto  and its supporters in the government were caught trying to  circumvent the mandatory three-year trial period,'' Sharma said.  

 Sharma pointed out this major flaw in the government  scientists' presentation of data at the Genetic Engineering  Approval Committee (GEAC) of the Ministry of Environment and  Forests when it called an ''open dialogue'' prior to approving  Mahyco-Monsanto's Bt Cotton called 'Bollgard.'  

 ''To reach any long-term scientific conclusion for crop based  research, the accepted norm is that it should be based on three  years of research,'' Sharma said.

 Earlier, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR),  the government's premier farm research outfit has also raised  objections to attempts at shortening the trial period favouring  Mahyco-Monsanto, the Indian subsidiary of the United States-based  multinational.

 Pressing home the discomfiture of the government, Sharma and  other campaigners are now calling for the disbandment of the  discredited committee for attempting to ''slip a scientific fraud  on the public.''

 Others who attended the GEAC's public dialogue, including  Michelle Chawla from Greenpeace International, complained that  major environmental concerns that were raised were simply ignored.

 ''There has been no public disclosure or scrutiny to date of  empirical evidence showing that scientific concerns have been  addressed by Monsanto-Mahyco,'' Chawla said.  

 Doreen Stabinsky, science advisor with Greenpeace said Bt  cotton threatened sound integrated pest management (IPM) practices  that reduce pesticide use in cotton significantly while Bt Cotton  can harm beneficial insects and lead to an increase in other pests  and therefore increased pesticide use.  

 ''The (government) scientists at the meeting refused to even  acknowledge these possibilities,'' Stabinsky said.  

 The Indian government has been mum on this episode.

 Monsanto-Mahyco's Bt Cotton field trials have always been  shrouded in mystery and it took internationally well-known  environmentalists liKe Vandana Shiva to blow the whistle on their  existence in 1998.  

 In states like southern Karnataka, Prof. Nanjundaswamy who  leads the Karnataka State Farmers' Association reacted with a  campaign to physically weed out fields planted with Bollgard, Bt- cotton.  

 While Monsanto representative in India, Ranjan Smatecek  maintains that the Indian government has given necessary clearance  at every stage of the trials, Shiva disputes this.

 Shiva's Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology  (RFSTE) has in fact challenged the legality of the trials,  approved by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), in the Supreme  Court of India.

 Shiva said the next hearing of the case, pending since 1999, is  likely to take place in July when the the Supreme Court resumes  work after the summer break and that the attempt by the GEAC to  approve commercialisation, meanwhile, was such as to invite  contempt proceedings.  

 ''During the pendency of the court case the GEAC could not even  legitimately have commercialisation as a valid agenda item at its  meeting,'' said Shiva who refused to attend the 'public dialogue.'  

 Sharma said that had the GEAC approved Bt-cotton, it would have  opened the floodgates to other GM seeds and crops in a country  which does not have technical and scientific infrastructure to  deal with GM technology.  

 The DBT has already approved field trials for GM tomatoes,  cauliflower and mustard by TNCs and is itself funding transgenic  research in potato, rice, wheat and tobacco.

 DBT's Manju Sharma has previously said that India cannot afford  to lag behind considering that millions of acres of transgenic plants are now being cultivated worldwide.

 According to Devinder Sharma, deferment of permission was  helped by a blitz of faxes and e-mails from activists around the  world directed at Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Agriculture  Minister Nitish Kumar, Health Minister C.P. Thakur and Minister  for Environment and Forests, T.R. Baalu.

 He said the failure of Monsanto-Mahyco to obtain permission for  commercialisation in India was only a one-year reprieve. ''We will  just have to keep up our guard against Bollgard until next year,''  he said. (