SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Challenges Posed by Bt Brinjal

from the Times of India

The cutting-edge technology of Bt brinjal [eggplant] has had an unintended consequence. The public outrage that followed the regulatory clearance of the first ever GM food crop has forced environment minister Jairam Ramesh to adopt an innovation in public administration.

No minister has ever before crisscrossed the country to hold a series of public consultations, that too on a policy matter already approved by a statutory regulator. Ramesh has announced that he would present his findings to the prime minister shortly following the last of the seven consultation meetings due in Bangalore on February 6.

Ramesh came up with the device of public consultations on October 15, 2009, just a day after the regulator in his ministry, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), had given its go-ahead to the commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal. The series of consultation meetings chaired by him, starting in Kolkata on January 13, have turned out to be as dramatic, given the manner in which pro and anti-GM lobbies sought to demonstrate not only the strength of their arguments but also their lung power.