Genetically Modified Crops:- The Supreme Court Stay

"An expert panel appointed by the Supreme Court has suggested a 10-year moratorium on field trials for genetically modified (GM) crops, ending prospects of their cultivation in the foreseeable future. Chengal Reddy, secretary general of the Consortium of Indian Farmers’ Associations, has protested that this goes dead against the interest of farmers who need the higher yields and lower pesticide use of GM crops. Indian consumers too will gain from higher production and less pesticide in their food.
    Activists portray GM crops as Frankenfoods, as dangerous monsters. Chengal Reddy points out that GM crops have been safely cultivated and eaten across the world for decades. The US is a litigation-happy country where lawyers launch class suits if there is even the slightest evidence of harm to citizens, yet none has brought a class suit against GM foods that are routinely eaten there.
    The most widely grown GM crops, maize and soybeans, are eaten directly and used for extracting cooking oil. Above all, they are used as animal feed, penetrating the whole meat and dairy chain. Yet no evidence of harm has surfaced. Why call them monster foods?
    Reddy’s court submission says that GM crops are grown over 160 million hectares in 29 countries, and imported by countries (including European ones) that don’t grow them. He says 300 million Americans, 1,350 million Chinese, 280 million Brazilians and millions elsewhere regularly eat GM foods, directly and indirectly. Why then should they be presumed to be dangerous for Indians? How is this a matter for expert committees or courts?
    Europeans have voiced major fears about GM foods. Yet even Europe permits GM maize cultivation. It imports GM soymeal and maize as animal feed. Millions of Europeans visit the US and South America and eat GM foods there, without getting poisoned.
    Three million Indians have become US citizens, and millions more go to the US for tourism and business. Supreme Court judges and MPs go to the US. Sonia Gandhi has gone there for treatment. Nobody holds back on the ground that they will be eating monster food in the US. How then can activists claim that GM foods are inherently dangerous and must not be cultivated in India without all sorts of clearances that are unnecessary for other crops?
    An elementary principle of justice is that you must be presumed innocent till proved guilty. Indian activists want the courts to view GM crops as guilty until proven innocent. This is the logic of their proposed elaborate screening procedures, including a 10-year moratorium.
    Activists argue that even if GM crops have not been proved dangerous so far, they may be in the future, and then it will be too late, so extremely careful screening is needed. This is like saying that some Muslims may be terrorists, so all Muslims must be subjected to the most extreme screening. Without extreme screening, it might prove too late to stop some actual terrorists, but can that be an argument for treating all Muslims as dangerous?
    Reddy says conventional agricultural technologies have limitations and cannot solve complex problems that genetic engineering can. He is appalled that eminent Indian agricultural scientists who have guided biotech development for two decades are being put in the dock by activists and supposed “experts.” He is astonished that the court has not consulted farmers’ groups like his own.
    Activists strongly opposed Bt cotton in India, and published bogus reports claiming that the crop had failed in the field. But farmers soon learned from experience that Bt cotton was very profitable, and 30 million rushed to adopt it. In consequence, India’s cotton production doubled and exports zoomed, even while using much less pesticide.
    Activists and some supposed experts have the gall to claim that Bt cotton has not benefited farmers at all, only the seed companies. This is the desperate mendacity of false prophets. It is an insult to farmers to say that they are so stupid as to go wholesale for a new technology that yields them no income. Punjab farmers lease land at Rs 30,000 per acre to grow Bt cotton. Would they do so if it was unprofitable?
    Finally, why is the Supreme Court in this at all? Some governments across the world have okayed GM crops and others not, but nowhere has this become a judicial issue. The Supreme Court allows public interest litigation in order to give voice to poor, powerless folk, and ensure fundamental rights. But anti-GM activists represent powerful, well-connected lobbies. US courts would dismiss as laughable the notion that GM foods violate fundamental rights of Americans. India’s Supreme Court should follow suit"

Article Appeared in Sunday Times of India by a very renowned economics Shri. Swaminathan Aiyyer 

Genetically Modified Crops:- The Debate Continued

There has been a lot critics and encouragement also on my earlier articles on this subject. And I want to take this subject in much depth covering all aspects, social, economic, and scientific as well.

At the end of a article (http://server-t88.e2enetworks.net.in/node/4985 )

Shri.K P Nair admitted that "He is not saying that GM technology has no place in India and his concerned is about that we don't have a way to test the bio safety of GM crops, especially brinjal, rice, okra".

This clears that we are in need of more advanced crops than what we sow conventionally. There are various kind of discussion moved forward by both GM and Organic food Supporter. However we cannot neglect the fact that it is imperative for agriculture sector to move further to feed the exponentially increasing populations, to create alternate for fossil fuels, to have a better financial output to farmer. The readers and the entire world will be less concern about the way of farming weather it is GM crops, organic crops or magnetically modified crops. The people are sensitive about the spending to output ratio. If they have alternate of GM crops some types of which don't require fertilizers, pesticides and can retain in lesser amount of water they will follow the trend. Even in Orrisa where Bt Cotton is banned, farmers continue farming with Bt Cotton only leaving the District Crop Officers helpless.

Also in the interview, Basudeb Acharia, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture,  on its new report, “Cultivation of Genetically Modified Food Crops — Prospects and Effects.” Published in the Hindu some errors of the reports are as follows:-

1) In India besides MMB's BT cotton India developed technologies are available from companies like Nath Seeds, JK seeds & Metahelix. BT cotton from MMB reaches to farmers through seeds of farmers choice supplied by more than 40 Indian seed companies.Farmers have all the choice including choice to not plant cotton, if not happy. Farmers in India are smart to choose what works for them. They choose Bt Cotton as they experience benefit season after season.

2) Price of Cotton seed containing Bollgard II technology today is Rs. 930 per packet and MMB get paid Rs. 163.28 as technology fee. Technology helps farmers save 5-7 rounds of insecticides plus application cost. Several independent studies have docuemented benefit of Rs. 5000-10000 per acre to the Bt Cotton farmer over non-Bt Cotton.

3) Biotech crops have been safely grown & consumed all over world for almost two decades without any adverse report.

At last I would emphasis on the fact that it is a need of hour to have change in our agriculture sector, weather using GM Crops or any other means. However it sad to mention that in a severe blow to the future of genetically modified (GM) food crops in India, a high-level committee appointed by the Supreme Court has recommended stopping all ongoing open field trials on such crops for 10 years until a new set of conditions is enforced on 19 October of 2012 and further deliberations on the case are expected on 29 October. It will not be prudent to have total ban on GM crops testing in the country where food demand is constantly rising.

(GM)Genetically modified crops: Farm Techniques Reforms continued

  Using genetic engineering DNA of crops is modified and these crops are called as Genetically Modified or GM Crops.These plants could have better resistance to certain pests, diseases or environmental conditions, or the production of a certain nutrient or pharmaceutical agent.
As they have better resistance to diseases naturally the productivity get substantially increased. 

Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) is a Gram-positive, soil-dwelling bacterium, commonly used as a biological pesticide. In my district where farmers are totally dependent of cotton this invention of Bt Cotton crops has totally changed the economy of farm sector. Earlier there was a lot dependency on the monsoon for output. Also the pest used to destroy the entire crop of the farm in many cases locally called as "Bond Alee". The cost of pesticides and allied treatments were earlier burdened to farmers. Now due to Bt Cotton the productivity get increased and consequently the socio-economics also get improved. 

The benefits of GM Crops are as follows:-
a. Improved shelf life
b. Improved nutrition
c. Stress resistance
d. Herbicide resistance
e. Pathogen resistance - insects or viruses
f. Production of biofuels
g. Production of biofuels
h. Also they can be used in Drugs, for Bioremeredition Genetically modified plants have also been used for bioremediation of contaminated soils. Mercury, selenium and organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), TNT and RDXexplosive contaminants have been removed from soils by transgenic plants containing genes for bacterial enzymes.

(GM)Genetically modified crops: Farm Techniques Reforms Part-2

Last month, On September 19, French researcher Gilles-Eric Séralini attempted to fuel public opposition to GM foods by showing the public how GM corn, with and without the pesticide Roundup, caused huge tumours and early death in 200 rats that had consumed it over two years. With many pictures of rats with tumours the size of ping-pong balls, Séralini certainly captured the public’s attention. France’s health, ecology and agriculture ministers promised a prompt investigation and threatened to ban imports of Monsanto’s GM corn to the EU. Russia even blocked imports of Monsanto corn. But Séralini’s research posed many problematic issues. For starters, the Sprague-Dawley strain of rats he used is naturally prone to tumours. Studies of Sprague-Dawley rats show that 88-96% of those that serve as experimental controls develop tumours before they reach two years of age. But the public saw only pictures of tumorous rats that had consumed GM corn and Roundup. 
Séralini used only 20 rats as a control group to be fed ordinary corn with no Roundup. Of these, five died within two years, which is unusual, because studies of thousands of untreated Sprague-Dawley rats show about half should have died in that period. Using his low death rate as a base, Séralini claimed — with no statistical analysis — that the higher death rate (just below 40%) for the remaining 180 rats fed with GM corn and Roundup was suspicious. 
Moreover, Séralini’s results contradict the latest meta-study of 24 long-term studies — up to two years and five generations — which found that the data do “not suggest any health hazards” and display “no statistically significant differences” between GM and conventional food. Oddly, Séralini permitted access to his paper to only a select group of reporters, and demanded they sign a confidentiality agreement preventing them from interviewing other experts before publication. 
But, while the first round of articles read like press releases, the scientific community has since spoken out forcefully. The European Food Safety Authority, for example, has now concluded that the “design, reporting and analysis of the study, as outlined in the paper, are inadequate”. 
The study was partly funded by Criigen, a group that campaigns against biotechnology. Criigen’s scientific board is headed by none other than Séralini. 
This debacle matters because many GM crops provide tangible benefits for people and the environment. They enable farmers to produce higher yields with fewer inputs, such as pesticides. That, in turn, implies less human encroachment into natural ecosystems, enabling greater biodiversity. 

Feeding the feeder:- The farmers of India and farm techniques reforms

Preface :- I would like to specially thanks my beloved friend Dyanesh and Sandip, both always encouraged me to write more and more on burgeoning problems with optimum solutions. Also want to express my special thanks to Namu and Piyu, both always helped me to improve my writing. This article is mere collection of information. Being a civil engineer, I am also a new commer in agriclture field. Thank you.

India has 70% population engaged in agriculture and allied sector. Though its contribution to GDP is less than 17%, the agri sector mainly have 67% rural populations. Still agriculture is demographically the broadest economic sector and plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic fabric of India.

The Statistics Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization reported that, per final numbers for 2009, India had grown to become the world's largest producer of the following agricultural produce:

Fresh Fruit Lemons and limes Buffalo milk, whole, fresh Castor oil seeds Sunflower seeds Sorghum Millet Spices Okra Jute Beeswax Bananas Mangoes, mangosteens, guavas

Pulses Indigenous Buffalo Meat Fruit, tropical Ginger Chick peas Areca nuts Other Bastfibres Pigeon peas Papayas Chillies and peppers, dry Anise, badian, fennel, coriander Goat milk, whole, fresh

Per final numbers for 2009, India is the world's second largest producer of the following agricultural produce:

Wheat Rice Vegetables, fresh Sugar cane Groundnuts, with shell Lentils Garlic Cauliflowers and broccoli Peas, green Sesame seed Cashew nuts, with shell Silk-worm cocoons, reelable

Cow milk, whole, fresh Tea Potatoes Onions Cotton lint Cottonseed Eggplants (aubergines) Nutmeg, mace and cardamoms Indigenous Goat Meat Cabbages and other brassicas Pumpkins, squash and gourds

In 2009, India was the world's third largest producer of eggs, oranges, coconuts, tomatoes, peas and beans.

However it is very sad o mentiond that India lacks far behind in comparing the world's most productive farm output compared with Indian farm output for respective crops. There is ample scope in every produce and subsequently more output.

India will shine

The position/rank for India among 183 countries from which the of result of survey carried out for year 2012 are as follows:-

1. Economic freedom index 123

2. Starting business 166

3. Ease of getting construction permission 181

4. Doing business 182

Also the FDI share in total investment is 2% compared with total investment of 35% of GDP.

The above analysis shows that what we need is clear cut decisions on governance. In order to have a robust growth of 10% year on year basis, the policies and transparency are all what we needed. These are the problems. Now let us move to solution part.

Starting business in country like India is tougher task because of political interference, licences and permissions required. Why don't we have a clear set of framework to obtained permissions? We must have all process of governance online, well defined and time bound. The kind of time limit I have seen while issuing the measurement certificate from city survey officer was 6 months for normal works. Why this 6 months of time are required to issue the certificate when it is issued within 24 hours of application if high profile person intervened. Does it means the normal person "aam admi" should wait for 6 months. It can also break down by not only deploying more resources but breaking the monopoly of single issuing officer. In my earlier blog also I advocated the multiple authorities to do the governance with some skillet freely trained by the authorities. e.g. If we train the principal of school for same and put incentives 50% of received fees from the applicants the problem will get easily solved. Also the kind of competition will make the city survey office more competent. Another group will sue me for asking why I have chosen the principal and not a bank manager.its just to give a simple example that interchangeability of jobs will have more versatility and excitement refraining it from becoming cumbersome. Keeping a regulator for streamlining the governance is need of hour.

Second emphasis is on judicial reforms. In one recent judgement of Nagpur high court a banker reveled innocent and CBI get warning for submitting wrong case in 1981 amounting 4000/- Rs mismanagement. Means a delay of 32 years, for a sum of Rs.4000/- meanwhile, 34 judges get transferred and the person/victim have suffered for 32 years. There are 74% cases amounting less than 4000 Rs scandals and are pending from 1970. Why don't we act on them? It is need of hour to set more courts and set time limit for each case. Will we ask our law ministry for it..?

National Skills Developement Corporation

      My country has a population around 1.2 billion. Most of part of this populations is young popolation making India as a country of young and youth as a national asset. Ideally we should be a superpower and this is dream of every Indian,including our beloved ex President Dr.APJ Kalam. Howvever there are few challenges in this conversion of India from developing country to a superpower.
      The youth if get proper education can be a part of productive resorce of a country and the country will prosper on this youth power. The same youth if denied access to education will be become a potential threat to the entire system including high unemployment and poverty. A national sample survey report shows me that if the GDP of India rises at an rate of 6% annually the poverty ratio to the total population will remain same. But the population is increasing, means at 6% growth we are adding poor to our country. It also shows if the GDP of India rises at an rate of 9% annually the poverty ratio will start decreasing smoothly. So to reduce the poverty we need to progress with a high GDP growth of 10%. I Don't want to put further economics and simply want to state that our salaries and expenditure will be grown 10% annually. So everything will be costed 10% higher next year, how one should prepare is the question you have.

A simple answer is add more skills to your development. Increase your income more than 10%. Another survey shows that a good English speaking person has 400% better chances of getting job in India. Do we spend enough energy to learn English ? Why don't we set it as our national goal. If our neighbouring country china is setting ambitious plans to cope this problem with large number of institutes and compulsion to learn English why don't we? If countries like Philippines, Mexico are coming in big way in the area of knowledge process outsourcing where does we stand? 
Our software giant Info-sys has best software training programme for the fresh graduates. If just we make educations sector as a profit business, I am sure infosys will not mind to set few more training centres to cater the demand of software industry. Setting such kind of centres in tier-II cities will simply strengthen our economy with knowledge based resources.

English speaking institutes are a matter of high class. Reading English, speaking in English is very rare in our culture. Some leaders will criticise my blog to claiming I am ending Marathi culture,being a Marathi man I have respect for my language and it is a separate issue of preserving and respecting the local language, however we are here to address more burning issue of English. With advent of primary English schools are the fabulous response from our societies to them I will accept we are doing really good steps. But on the same lines our teachers, parents also needs such kind of enrolment   And it should be socially accepted that we need to put more efforts to promote the English language to enhance our skills. A compulsion of English speaking certificate for getting passport,driving licence will definitely makes sense. Also the subsidy enhancement will encourage the people to adopt  English.

In 2008 govt of India launched a wholly autonomous body called national skills development with public private partnership. The National Skill Development Corporation India (NSDC) is a one of its kind, Public Private Partnership in India. It aims to promote skill development by catalyzing creation of large, quality, for-profit vocational institutions. It provides funding to build scalable, for-profit vocational training initiatives. Its mandate is also to enable support systems such as quality assurance, information systems and train the trainer academies either directly or through partnerships with a objective of  "To contribute significantly (about 30 per cent) to the overall target of skilling / upskilling 500 million people in India by 2022, mainly by fostering private sector initiatives in skill development programmes and providing funding."
I want technocrats to contribute here for the kind of skill sets and form of require training so as to move further with this mission.

The end of Corruption

I want to start with a story of my friend Latesh, who is a software engineer in MNC. Few lines among the story of buying new house for his family, are as under,

"After securing a good job in a software firm, I also was in quest of searching a modest home in new Mumbai. So as a buyer, I have visited few builders offices enquiring about new projects and flats. I was astonished on the figures they were charging for mere a 240 to 520 sq feet build flat and charging for more than double are on same on the name of superbuilt up area 650 and 1050 sq feet for 1Bhk and 2 Bhk flat respectively. Also they want some portion in form of black money. The cost was excluding the amenities,parking space, light and other connections. Somehow I convince only few builders that all payment for basic cost will be made purely by cheque I.e. white money.

Then I approach to bank to have loan as I hardly have any money to pay the builder. After searching many banks I got on aggressive private sector bank who promise me to avail loan on home as well as stamp duty charges too but I have to made 15% advance payement to the builder. The deal got stuck because of non availability of those 15% and the dream of having home in mumbai was delayed as I began saving to have these 15% cost. Meanwhile the real estate prices have rise exponentially like never before.The prices uses to hike every week such that the figure of 15% was always became mere dream to turn into reality. Somehow after 5 years of  accumulation I hardly manage to buy a small flat in tiler II city."

There are many Latesh in our country. The builders need to pay a junk of black money to buy land as land owners don't want to pay taxes. So they ask small portion of total price in cheque and balance part in cash. I am not Einstein to revelling this well known truth. However I want to point out that " why government is emphasising on higher stamp duties??"

 When it is need of hour to increase the 'government prices of land and property' I.e. ready reckoned prices to match it market prices with reduction in stamp duty. This will cure many problems in one stroke. Suppose I have a piece of land having market cost 1 crore and ready reckoned price of 10 lakhs then I will prefer to sell it only for 10 lakh and balanced will take into cash which is totally unethical as well illegal. As in short term it saves the stamp duty on 90 lakh rupees which is about 4.5 lakh rupees in Maharashtra. This is the root cause of all fraudulent deals. Politicians have most of black money and they use this way to convert the money into assets. Now the government instead of acting on it put a service tax of 3.24% additionally. This will simply discourage the people to show the actual cost of transactions.

While there is a lot of chaos on issue of corruption I want to mentioned why do people do it.
The builders say for sanctions, approvals they need favour from beurocrats and politicians. For sealing the land deals they need to give a lot of black money. Now I asks beurocrats why do you require money they informed for postings they need to pay money to politicians. Now I went to politicians why do you people require moeney they informed that their voters ask for money during elections, hoarding , cut outs requires money. I understood the cycle of black money and it make me clear that the simple way to minimise it is by choosing the right person as our leader. It is the simplest way to end this.

Everyone wants a house,good transportations, security, good life, wants their children better education for which they require money. But we never taught that ethics are also important than the money. 

Say every year around 1cr students have their 12th standard exam which is backbone if education system. However are there reputed colleges that will accomodate half of this populations for best education in world. The answer is simply no. So again the corruption in form of donations,contacts to secure admission in renowed colleges. When we are working to minimise the corruption, we also emphasis on these issues which are the root cause of corruptions. I will address many of them in forthcoming blogs with simple solutions.