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The move
Supreme C ourt
intellectual property
indian economy
GM crop trials
economy
NEW DELHI: Opposing the Supreme Courtconstituted Technical Expert Committee's recommendation for a 10-year moratorium on field trials of genetically modified food crops, the Union government on Friday said if accepted, the move could set India back by two decades in terms of scientific research. Sounding the grave warning, the agriculture and environment ministries through attorney general G E Vahanvati said, "A 10-year moratorium on GM crop trials will be a blow to Indian science as it would put the country 20 years back in scientific research in comparison to fast growing economies who are developing GM crops like Brazil and China."
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(Opposi n g th e SC-con sti tu ted)
The Centre added, "A ban on GM crop field trials will be highly detrimental and not in the national interest. Adoption of the interim recommendations of the TEC will bring to a halt the process of testing/assessment of the safety of GM crops. The entire working of the regulatory agencies, the research activities on GM crops and in turn the need of the country to realize the potential benefit of modern biotechnology in terms of food security would come to a virtual halt if moratorium/ban is imposed on field trials of GM crops." Vahanvati reminded the court that because of this reason, the court had on May 8, 2007, lifted the temporary ban on field trials by its September 22, 2006, order. Petitioners Aruna Rodrigues and NGO 'Gene Campaign' pitched for acceptance of the TEC's interim report and implementation of the moratorium on the ground that unless "precautionary principle" was applied in this case, grave and irreversible pollution of indigenous gene pool of food crops would take place, wiping out world renowned Indian agribrands like basmati rice. But the Union government found support from the industry in arguing for GM crops. The Centre, in its affidavit, said a moratorium on field trials of GM crops would have cascading implications. "The country will fail to attract scientific talent from the younger generations in the absence of
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opportunity. Over a period of time, lack of expertise in a critical area such as food security will set India back by 30-40 years," it said. Following the arguments for and against implementation of the moratorium, a bench of Justices Swatanter Kumar and S J Mukhopadhaya referred the objections to the interim report back to the TEC and asked the expert body to consider them in detail and give a final report to the court in six weeks. The Union government said the TEC, before giving its interim report, had not properly considered its objections and even accused the expert group of exceeding its terms of reference while giving its conclusions and recommendations. It said Indian farmers and the Indian economy would be the biggest losers if GM crop field trials were stalled. If this happened, India would be forced to import technology by paying much higher price due to lack of its partnership in the Intellectual Property Rights and by losing out on the human resource development required for being in the race for global technology development which is essential for maintaining the superiority of nations, the Centre said. "In biotechnology and genetics, the principle science behind GM crops, India has done exceedingly well in investing in HRD, education and training since 1986 with the establishment of the Department of Biotechnology, the first country to do so," it said.
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dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com
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