Okay, this is an interesting one. I can't tell if it is good or bad. As near as I can tell, India is anti-Monsanto but seemingly pro-GMO. Haven't run across that combination before! All for down with Monsanto, but what is the Indian government capable of doing with an arsenal of GMO's? Or maybe I just read it all wrong. It was a rather taxing read.
Here is the article in full: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/commanding-heights-return/386315/
Below is an excerpt with my own thoughts in red. Believe me, without annotating this article I was having a difficult time deciphering what was being said!
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The same bias in favour of the public sector (ie. gov't operated) was also seen when, in the Bt brinjal case, the government gave an impression that the results of the tests could not be trusted as they had been conducted by private sector firms. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh may have gone by the book as he put a moratorium on the commercial use of the Bt seeds after contacting different scientists and stakeholders. But his focus on creating a “countervailing power” to the work done by Monsanto was jarring (jarring to Monsanto being the private sector?) as was his comment on the number of “Indian-origin scientists” who work in Monsanto (as if this made the science better or worse). Indeed, Mr Ramesh’s idea of “countervailing power” was not about setting up more private firms since he rued the lack of a ‘large-scale publicly-funded biotechnology effort in agriculture’. (So he want's more gov't control of the testing and R&D, yes? Not really anti-GMO, but sounds anti-Monsanto by default.)
A couple of recent bills of the government reinforce this view (reinforcing the confusion? the pro-GMO stance of this paragraph? or the anti-Monsanto stance in the previous paragraph?) The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, for instance, has a section on misleading the public about organisms and products and the punishment for those found guilty of this charge is a jail term of six months to a year. Theoretically, anyone who speaks against genetically modified products can be imprisoned for misleading the public (huge, depressing step backwards;) there are even prison terms for those demonstrating against such products. Little wonder that the scientific community is up in arms against the proposal (thank god somebody has their head screwed on right.) The Right to Education Act, as has been pointed out before, is also flawed since, instead of focusing on educational outcomes, it focuses on infrastructure standards. This will likely drive out most unrecognised private schools that, as several studies have shown, offer education levels that are no worse (though often better) than those offered by government schools, and at costs that are much lower. While the move towards “commanding heights” is questionable, what makes this unacceptable is that those in charge of these heights are not doing much to ensure their better functioning. Witness, for instance, the delays and the confusion over the BSNL tender, and this is just one of the recent examples. (Wow, the content in this article is plain-old creepy.)
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So, did I get it wrong? What are your thoughts?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Monsanto Faking Data To Get Approvals. (Now there's a shocker!)
Barbara H. Peterson on February 14th, 2010
India is leading the way in exposing Monsanto for what it is – corrupt to the core. The following two articles show how Monsanto regularly faked data to get its transgenic crop varieties approved in India...Entire article: http://farmwars.info/?p=2407
This Farm Wars blog looks like a good reference for those fighting the good fight again Monsanto and bioterrorism. Give it a look.
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