Read about it in:

• The Economic Times
• The Times of India
• The AP

How much difference a comma makes:

“It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary, principle-based approach.” <– Sounds like a reasonable person dealing with vocal discontent with the genetically engineered eggplants. Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh quoted in Times of India

“It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach.” <– Irrational standard* that can never be met. Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh quoted in AP.

I don’t know what else to say about this story. Letting facts that should be settled by science becoming matters of opinion is one of the prices we pay for democracy, a form of government that’s still a head and shoulders above anything else yet discovered by modern man. Also, I totally called it:

This would seem to be the week for vegetables I hated as a kid. Yesterday was onion, today tomato, if there’s a story about brinjal/eggplant in the next few days we’ll have hit all the big ones.

*The precautionary principle as it has been quoted to me in the past: “Activities that present an uncertain potential for significant harm should be prohibited unless the proponent of the activity shows that it presents no appreciable risk of harm.” In other words, any and every action can be considered guilty until proven innocent of all accusations levels against it, and since people can come up with new accusations a lot faster than science can disprove them, it would seem that adhering to this version of the precautionary principle would mean not doing anything. Event

I’ll admit I disagree with this quote:

Clinton said she favoured a strong intellectual property or patent regime (IPR) to safeguard the ownership of agricultural research, as that would be in ‘everyone’s interest’.

India is faced with the question of how best to balance protection for creators, to encourage biotech research, and the rights of farmers, to make sure they get the most possible benefit from that research. It is important to strike the right balance between the two, not just cater to the desires of one side of the other. It’s the same issue faced by every country when it comes to regulating everything from pharmaceutical research to the music industry.

And I have faith India will find the right balance. After all we’re talking about a country where cheap pirate copies of movies are available cheaply and easily on every street corner sometimes before movies even make it into theaters, yet Bollywood (the Indian film industry based in Mumbai) is quite profitable, turns out twice as many films as Hollywood, and is probably the only other national film industry, other than America’s, recognized around the world.*

So given all that could the people who write about the issue please PLEASE bother to look up what bt stands for? Case in point:

First, the Indian government has yet to greenlight the commercialisation of Bt brinjal — crucial for the future of these ‘Bt brand’ companies — even after a thumbs up from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). … the MNCs who produce ‘Bt’ seeds, as genetically modified or GM crops have come to be popularly known (patents would ensure that no one else would be allowed to produce or sell these seeds).

*Off the top of my head I’d recommend Krrish and Salaam/Namaste as examples of entertaining movies Bollywood has put out recently, and Gol Maal as a hilarious one from several decades ago.