1.Bayer clamps down on GM rice protest in India
2.GM veggies in India within 3 yrs: Govt
3.European geneticists caution India against GM crops
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1.Bayer clamps down on GM rice protest in India
The Ecologist, 13 July 2009
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/285739/bayer_clamps_down_on_gm_rice_protest_in_india.html

Campaigners in India are facing charges including trespassing and criminal intimidation following a protest last month against genetically modified rice being trialled by Bayer BioScience.

Pharmaceuticals giant Bayer BioScience is pressing charges against protesters in India following an anti-GM demonstration last month.

Thirty-five individuals were arrested on 22 June after five Greenpeace volunteers cordoned off a field of GM rice in the village of Chinna Kanjarla, Hyderabad, planting scarecrows and ‘biohazard’ signs.

The charges include trespassing, causing damage and 'criminal intimidation'. Some of those arrested included members of the public and press. Greenpeace claims the field trial is a violation of an assurance it received from Bayer in 2004 that GM research in India had been halted.

'[The charges are] clearly a move to silence any opposition to the unrestrained release of risky GM crops into our food chain,' said Jai Krishna, sustainable agriculture campaigner with Greenpeace India.

'Citizens have the right to protest against unhealthy and hazardous GM food trials. If disobeying the law can stop GM rice from contaminating our rich rice biodiversity then so be it, we will do it again. The rights of farmers to save their seeds and the rights of consumers to have safe food is more important than a company’s profits.'

With its lax laws on genetic modification, biotech corporations see India as an ideal testing ground for their products.

The Indian government has confirmed plans to release 170 GM varieties in 41 different crops, among them more than 25 varieties of GM rice. Scientists at the University of Caen, France, have already said the release of Bt brinjal (aubergine) should be forbidden, as it 'present[s] a serious risk for human and animal health'.

Farmers and food campaigners also point to the deaths of hundreds of sheep and goats in Warangal district, thought to have died as a result of eating stalks and leaves from GM cotton.

A further protest outside Patancheru police station today was designed to highlight the issue of GM trials in India.

Actor and activist Amala Akkineni said it was 'an honour to be part of a just battle'.

'The father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi led by example and showed that some citizen rights are not to be negotiated,' she said. 'The right to safe food is one of them. We must demand from our government to be responsible and be on the side of citizens. I don’t think anyone in Hyderabad wants GM biriyani.'
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2.GM veggies in India within 3 yrs: Govt
Times of India, July 15 2009
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=Q0FQLzIwMDkvMDcvMTUjQXIwMDMwMg==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

New Delhi: In a decision that's likely to kick off a controversy, the government on Tuesday announced that it plans to introduce genetically modified (GM) food - tomato, brinjal and cauliflower - in the country within the next three years.

This is the first time the agriculture ministry has promised to introduce GM food crops. The announcement was made by the agriculture ministry in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Department of Biotechnology have approved the three transgenic crops that are in various stages of tests and development in institutes across the country.

After these tests, the final clearance for allowing cultivation of GM varieties will be given by the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation and the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, which themselves have been accused of having a conflict of interest as well as favouring the biotech industry.

Till date, India has only allowed genetically modified cotton ”” a non-food crop. The use of GM cotton has grown, but so has the controversy around it.

SOWING A ROW

Govt plans to introduce geneticallymodified food in the country

Agriculture ministry tells Parliament that GM tomato, brinjal and cauliflower will be launched within three years

Global opinion is split on GM foods: US is a major proponent while EU is intensely wary of these products

Many experts feel India, which needs to feed an ever-growing population, cannot afford to overlook GM foods 'GM crop must to increase output’

New Delhi: Government announced that it plans to introduce genetically modified (GM) food in the country within the next three years. Questions have also been raised about how the GM crops may contaminate non-GM crops, especially in the loosely regulated Indian agricultural scenario. Other questions about their water intake, costs and high ecological footprint have also been raised. Yet another point of debate has been about intellectual property issues and dominance of a few multinational corporations in the sector.

But promoters of GM crops rebuff these arguments as scare-mongering and say that the new technology increases productivity of the crops. They say, in a country like India, which needs to significantly raise agricultural output in the coming years to feed a growing population, it would be impossible to overlook the promise of GM foods in meeting these demands.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had recently said while he found value in GM cotton grown in the country, he was unsure about modified food crops being grown and eaten. Modified food products are a completely different game, with international opinion divided on whether they should be allowed or not. TNN
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3.European geneticists caution India against GM crops    
Ashok B Sharma
Financial Express, 10 July 2009
*Scientific papers expose health and environment hazards

Two leading European geneticists have cautioned India not to accept genetically modified (GM) crops and food. They said that these products were rejected in Europe and were being willfully dumped in India by the multinational corporations as they could not find enough market in Europe.
 
The chair of the department of molecular biology in the University of Caen, France, Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini shared with the mediapersons on Friday the findings from his latest path breaking research on the adverse impact of herbicides like glyphosate. Results from his research show that this popularly used herbicide is also a part of the package for herbicide tolerant GM crops like Roundup Ready Soybean. The inert ingredients of Roundup Ready Soybeans can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.  Such cases have already occurred in Argentina were Roundup Ready Soybeans are extensively grown.
 
Another European geneticist, Prof Michael Antoniou , reader in the department of medical and molecular genetics in King’s College, London said : "The only responsible use of genetic engineering is in a contained clinical laboratory setup. The extreme complexity with which genomic regulation works has not been understood by the best of geneticists and it should be remembered that GMOs released in the environment cannot be recalled. Precautionary approach is the only way forward with this technology."
 
Seralini and Antoniou are presently in India addressing conferences of health experts, environmentalists and agriculture scientists.
 
The new Indian minister of state for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh after assuming his office had expressed apprehensions about health and environmental hazards of GM crops and assured to take necessary action before final approval for its commercial release.
 
Seralini, who is also directly associated with the France-based Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN),  said : "99% of all GM crops are actually sponges of pesticides they are either engineered to produce a pesticide or to tolerate a pesticide. This is the case with insect resistant crops like Bt cotton, Bt brinjal and herbicide tolerant crops like GM corn. Given such a technology, the adverse effect on human and animal health is often neglected by developer seed companies and regulatory authorities and this is unacceptable since we are dealing with an irreversible technology.”
 
"Rats which were GM-fed had diarrhoea, had higher water consumption, suffered from decrease in liver weight as well as decrease in the relative liver to body weight ratio. Feed intake was modified in broiler chickens with glucose in some instances. Average feed conversion and efficiency ratios are changed in GM-fed fish. All that makes a very coherent picture of Bt brinjal to be potentially unsafe for human consumption. It will be also potentially unsafe to eat animals who have these problems. These differences are most often not reported in the summaries of different experiments, but are present in the raw data,”the study added.