Jairam Ramesh, in his earlier avatar, was known as a strong proponent of corporate led "economic development".
But this time, he appears to have changed his stripes, significantly, even if partly. On Tadoba Tiger Reserve (in Vidarbha) , he took a strong stand against the known position of the state government in favour of Adani mining project. On the CMZ issue took a very positive stand. Overturned the earlier move initiated by the UPA-I and being rushed through by the bureaucracy to scrap the CRZ and replace it with "development"-friendly CMZ. This was being pushed also by the state governments, and government of Maharashtra in particular. The fishworkers and environmentalists were of course up in arms against the move. Even in case of POSCO, he has reportedly made some welcome noise. Given the fact of PM's public position on that, that's not something too insignificant. Here of course, he has overturned what Sharad Pawar was hell-bent to achieve. (May like to look up Vandana Shiva in today's Asian Age, reproduce below. She, rather interestingly, almost anticipates the decision.) On the flip side, his performance on the nuclear projects - Haripur in particular, appears to be hazy at best and pretty deplorable at worst. Things are not too clear though at the moment. His stand on Copenhagen Climate Conference was also rather confusing. This particular decision deserves and needs applaud on its merit. But with due caution. He is NOT against GM food per se. He has expressed himself against corporate led research and in favour of government labs carrying out such efforts. That's not too reassuring. Of course there could be divergent interpretations. He is just being "tactical", or tactful, to minimise the shock and opposition. Or, he is keeping the doors open. Or he is just "rational". All said and done, it's a significant victory for the large number farmers of railing the move and of course environmental activists! That must prod us to push further ahead, to demand complete transparency in these matters. I/III. http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/10/stories/2010021058000100.htm <http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/10/stories/2010021058000100.htm> *It’s moratorium on Bt brinjal: Jairam* Special Correspondent *“Let studies establish the safety of the crop” * NEW DELHI: Bt brinjal will not make it to your dinner table for now. On Tuesday, the Environment Ministry announced its decision to impose a moratorium on the release of the transgenic brinjal hybrid developed by Mahyco, a subsidiary of global seed giant Monsanto. The moratorium will last “till such time independent scientific studies establish, to the satisfaction of both the public and professionals, the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and environment, including the rich genetic wealth existing in brinjal in our country,” said Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. Public consultations The Minister’s decision comes after a month of public consultations in seven cities, which were attended by approximately 8,000 people. They were organised after widespread protests against the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee’s (GEAC) recommendation of approval of Bt brinjal in October 2009. Mr. Ramesh attributed the decision to several factors: lack of clear consensus among the scientific community; opposition from 10 State governments, especially from the major brinjal-producing States; questions raised about the safety and testing process; lack of an independent biotechnology regulatory authority; negative public sentiment and fears among consumers and lack of a global precedent. “My decision is both responsible to science and responsive to society,” he said adding he did not come under pressure from any quarter in arriving at the decision. Fresh studies Mr. Ramesh said the moratorium period would be used to commission fresh scientific studies and reform the testing process. “If you need long term toxicity tests, then you must do it, no matter how long it takes… There is no hurry. There is no overriding urgency or food security argument for [release of] Bt brinjal,” he said. “Our objective is to restore public confidence and trust in the Bt brinjal product. If it cannot be done, so be it.” The moratorium period should also be used to operationalise an independent regulatory authority and hold a parliamentary debate on private investment in agricultural biotechnology. “I don’t believe India should be dependent on the private sector seed industry,” said Mr. Ramesh. “I believe seeds are as strategic to India as space and nuclear issues.” Bt brinjal, created by inserting a gene from the soil bacterium, *Bacillus thuringiensis* – hence the Bt – is capable of resisting several insect pests and could reduce the use of pesticide. Bt Brinjal: Note by Ministry of Environment and Forests<http://www.hindu.com/nic/btbrinjal.htm> II. http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2010/02/10&PageLabel=21&EntityId=Ar02100&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T ‘GM norms must better med rules’Environment minister Jairam Ramesh tells Nitin Sethi that the conflict of interest issue in GEAC will be resolved before the next round of tests. Excerpts from an interview. *Q: Does your report set the standards required for clearance of all future GM food crops even though this is for a specific case? *A: Absolutely, for food crops. We have okra in the pipeline, two Bt brinjal varieties by the Indian Institute of Horticulture Research and one by the Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, we have GM rice also in the pipeline. We should have a different set of standards for food crops. I am persuaded by the argument that many doctors, including the DG of ICMR, feel standards should be stricter than for drugs because food is something you consume every day. In the case of drugs, you do independent clinical trials, why can’t they be done for food crops, say for issues of chronic toxicity... M S Swaminathan has raised this concern repeatedly. *Q: But the approval body GEAC sets protocols and checks results and has members with conflict of interests. *A: You need a network of independent testing laboratories. One doesn’t need to set up new labs, just a network of existing labs. We must have procedures that lead to public confidence through proper protocols and transparency. *Q: But that is something you and the ministry need to do. *A: Yes, that is my role... the setting up of an independent regulator and Mr Prithviraj Chavan’s role. But taking the bunch of scientific material that has come to me and assessing it, that is GEAC’s role. *Q: Don’t you need to settle them now before other approvals ? * A: We will certainly examine this. We need to have clear rules over conflict of interest. *Q: Will the conflict of interest be settled before other approvals? *A: The next round of testing should not evoke such allegations of conflict of interest, that much I’m clear. We should have clear set of guidelines and they should be implemented before we have an EC 3 (EC 2 committee cleared Bt brinjal). *Q: But conflict of interest should not arise for any GM approvals. *A: Agree. It’s important to bring about greater transparency. GEAC must establish a channel of communication with the scientific community and with civil society. *Q: Is your word on the Bt brinjal moratorium final within the government now? *A: The GEAC comes under my ministry. I am the minister. My word is final, the buck stops with me. Unless, of course, the PM asks it to be brought to the Cabinet. *Q: Why is the biotech regulatory authority bill lying for years now? *A: I don’t know. I heard of it in 2004. We are in 2010 and don’t have a regulator. Similarly, seeds bill also came about in 2004. I spoke to the chairman of Food Safety Standards Authority of India and he says he has been asked to go slow because we are getting a new biotech regulator. This buck-passing is unnecessary. If we have an independent telecom regulator, we can have one here too. *Q: What about the seeds bill? *A: The seeds bill has just come, we are going to move some amendments this session. There should be a predominant role for public sector here or you get problems such as in Bt cotton where farmer had to keep buying hybrid seeds. *A big setback for biotech: Biocon *Bangalore: Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw called the moratorium on commercialisation of Bt Brinjal a “big setback” for biotechnology. “I am afraid it will thwart further investment in agri-biotech research,” she said. However, if the decision is due to the need for more data, she was okay with the decision. AGENCIES III. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bt-interrupted/577959/ <http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bt-interrupted/577959/>Bt, interrupted *The Indian Express* Posted online: Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010 at 0304 hrs **Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s decision to advance the government’s verdict on the commercial release of Bt brinjal to Tuesday evening was as abrupt as it was baffling. There would be a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal, he said a day ahead of schedule. The announcement capped weeks of fractious public “consultations” in which a familiar array of sceptics held the stage. It also comes upon remarkably unambiguous obstruction by state governments, which argued that trials to assess the genetically modified crop’s effect on health and ecology had not been conclusive enough. At the snap press conference called on Tuesday evening, Ramesh appeared to heed this caution. “There is no over-riding urgency to introduce it (Bt brinjal),” he said. “When the public sentiments have been negative, it is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary and principle-based approach.” The decision, he added, would be on hold till “independent scientific studies” settled the questions about safety. Given the rocky experience with genetically modified crops, especially food, this seemingly reasonable approach is nothing but obfuscation. Public sentiment is an odd input to a decision that must be purely scientific. By invoking it, the minister abdicates his responsibility to carry forward the clearance process on the basis of fact, not hypothesis. And the facts are as follows: in October, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee had cleared the commercial release of Bt brinjal. The GEAC is constituted in the ministry of environment and forests, and its clearance is supposed to abide by the highest degree of caution. Ramesh’s office puts the onus on him to detail exactly why the committee’s clearance has been so summarily sacrificed at the altar of “public sentiments”. By playing to the gallery, Ramesh has not only withheld from the farmer an option that could increase productivity and drastically cut pesticide use. He has also undermined the institutional mechanism that has sustained this country’s cautious introduction of GM seeds like cotton and that is in the process of clearing other food crops like rice, okra and tomato. Unless there is a quick course correction, the Bt brinjal embargo could retard the pace of the “second green revolution” promised through the development, trials and introduction of GM varieties of crops to enhance producti- vity and cut the use of water and pesticides, as the case may be. It would be most unfortunate if policy decisions were to be exposed to a miasma of conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated fear-mongering. IV. http://www.asianage.com/op-ed/1790-care-for-some-bt-with-brinjal.html Care for some Bt with brinjal?<http://www.asianage.com/op-ed/1790-care-for-some-bt-with-brinjal.html> Vandana Shiva Feb.10 : The approval of Bt Brinjal by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has exposed the unscientific basis on which genetically-engineered crops are being commercialised, and it raises questions about the entire bio-safety process. The admission by the chair of the Expert Committee-II (EC-II), Dr Arjula Reddy, that Union agriculture minister pressurised the panel to approve Bt Brinjal is a symptom of the corruption that needs investigation. Dr Reddy admitted this in a television interview. The Bt Brinjal debate is not just about a vegetable. It is a test for our food sovereignty and our democracy. This is why it was so important to take it to the public through a series of public hearings that had been organised by the ministry of forest and environment. The results of these public hearings will be out today and should be treated like a referendum on genetically-modified organisms (GMO). This is vital for democracy in the most vital aspect of life — the food we eat. Genetic engineering needs careful assessment because it allows the transfer of genes from one organism to a totally unrelated organism, crossing species barriers. The impacts are totally unpredictable. It were these unpredictable consequences that led the founding fathers of genetic engineering, or recombinant DNA research, to call for a moratorium on genetic engineering at Asilomer, California, in 1972. However, Wall Street and the biotechnology industry hijacked genetic engineering and started to rush genetically-modified (GM) crops with false promises to the market. Not only are the consequences of genetic engineering unpredictable, the technology itself is unpredictable. It has been falsely projected by the biotechnology industry that because the manipulation of plants is at the genetic level, genetic engineering is more accurate and precise than conventional breeding. This is not true. There are only two tools used for current genetic engineering — one is the gene gun, the other is a plant cancer, Agrobacterium tumefacieus. The uncertainty of the technology is the reason that antibiotic resistance marker genes are used to separate the cells whose genome absorbed the foreign gene from those that do not. The Bt Brinjal uses a gene, Cry 1 Ac, to produce a toxin from a soil organism — Bacillus Thurengensis (Bt) — as well as two antibiotic resistance marker genes. The NPT11 gene confers resistance to the antibiotics Kanamycin and Neomycin; The AAD gene confers resistance to antibiotic resistance marker genes to separate the cells that absorbed the Bt gene from those that did not. But to assess bio-safety, safety tests also need to assess the transgene, i.e the Bt Gene Cry 1Ac plus antibiotic resistance marker genes (NPT11 plus AAD) plus the viral promoter (Ca MV3 35S) plus the vector (Agrobacterium, which is used to carry the Bt gene into the brinjal). However, the tests on bio-safety of Bt Brinjal done by Monsanto/Mahyco and approved by GEAC have not tested Bt Brinjal at all. They have only tested the naturally-occurring and safe microbial Bt. This is a “don’t look, don’t see” policy. The safety of microbial Bt sprays cannot be used as proof of safety of transgenic Bt. Bt sprays are composed primarily of endotoxins in an inactive crystalline form. Bt crops on the other hand are genetically-engineered to produce the Bt toxin, which is active without processing. The “rationale for the development of Bt Brinjal” presented by EC-II is based on the false assumption that genetically-engineered Bt crops like Bt Brinjal are an alternative to the use of chemical pesticides for pest control. The panel does not address the real alternative to chemical agriculture, which is organic farming based on the principles of agro-ecology. Bt Cotton, like Bt Brinjal, was supposed to control the lepidopteron insects. In case of cotton, the pest was the bollworm. In case of Bt Brinjal, it is the fruit and shoot borer. In Bt Cotton we have witnessed the emergence of new non-target pests and diseases such as aphids, jassids, army bug, mealy bug and “laliya”. This has led to an increase, not a decrease, in pesticide use. Navdanya, a movement that has created 55 community seed banks and works with 500,000 farmers, has carried out studies that show a 13-fold increase in pesticide use in Vidharba after the introduction of Bt Cotton. (I am the executive director of the Navdanya Trust.) Genetically-engineered Bt Brinjal can lead to genetic pollution and contamination. Here too the panel, to deny the ecological risks of genetic pollution, has used totally unscientific arguments. The panel cannot even make up its mind whether brinjal is self-pollinated or cross-pollinated. Indian researchers have reported two to 48 per cent out crossing in brinjal varieties in India. The Mahyco results on cross-pollination vary from 1.4 per cent to 2.7 per cent in 2002, and drop to 0.14 per cent to 85 per cent in the 2007 studies. These unscientific claims go counter to the established science of plant breeding which has established 200 metres as the isolation distance for breeding foundation seeds and 100 metres for breeding certified seeds for brinjal. Bees pollinate over larger distances. Britain’s former minister for environment, Michael Meacher, had to admit that bees, which may fly up to nine km (six miles) in search of nectar, cannot be expected to observe a “no-fly zone”. A study by the UK-based National Pollen Research Unit in 1999 showed that wind can carry viable maize pollen hundreds of kilometres in 24 hours. Transgenic pollen was found 4.5 km (nearly three miles) from a field of GM oilseed rape in Oxfordshire — at least 20 times over the limit set by the regulatory agencies. This level of genetic pollution will destroy our organic farmers who with love and care produce pesticide-free, GMO-free vegetables for citizens. Instead of recognising that approval for commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal is a threat to organic growers, the panel carelessly and callously states that the responsibility of avoiding pollution lies with organic producers. Why should our small organic growers have to bear the burden of avoiding contamination of their crops? Liability systems need to be evolved which make pollinators pay and make the company liable for economic damages. Until then, there should be a moratorium on Bt Brinjal. During the moratorium, the government needs to set up interdisciplinary bio-safety assessment systems and inter-ministerial bio-safety regulatory processes which should be independent of the biotechnology industry. It also needs to have a system of labelling GMOs to respect the right of citizens to know what they are eating and make informed choices. This is imperative to protect our food sovereignty and our food democracy. (This article was written before an indefinite moratorium on commercial release of Bt Brinjal was announced on Tuesday) Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
