India needs GM crops to provide food security to its Increasing POPULATION

Pushed to a corner by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s peremptory freeze on Bt brinjal, the UPA government took the first step of finding a way out. And it needed the authority of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to do that.

In a clear enunciation of the government’s policy on GM crops — a policy that got clouded by Ramesh’s rhetoric — the Prime Minister underlined the importance of biotechnology in productivity and food security, called for private investment in biotech, a time-frame for a decision on Bt brinjal and a national biotechnology regulatory authority.

These significant shifts from Ramesh’s stand came in a statement after the Prime Minister’s meeting this evening with Ramesh, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Science and Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan and HRD Minister Kapil Sibal.

Significantly, all three — Pawar, Chavan and Sibal — had called for a more nuanced, science-based approach to the issue. Pawar, in fact, sent a letter to the Prime Minister suggesting that the ad hoc freeze on Bt Brinjal would set the clock back and demoralise Indian scientists.