Bt Brinjal to be studied for its medicinal and nutritional qualities

A government committee has decided to test Bt brinjal for its medicinal and nutritional qualities while moving a step ahead on allowing commercial release of India's first genetically modified food crop.

Updated on: May 22, 2011, 21:04:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A government committee has decided to test Bt brinjal for its medicinal and nutritional qualities while moving a step ahead on allowing commercial release of India's first genetically modified food crop.

The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), India's bio-tech regulator, has decided that the Hyderabad-based National Institute for Nutrition will conduct the study with the help of the health ministry and its findings will be important for reaching the final decision.

The ministry's department of Ayurvedic, Unani and Medicinal Plant Board had expressed concern regarding the likely impact of Genetically Modified (GM) brinjal on traditional Indian medicines, where brinjal is used for treating neurological and musculoskeletal disorders.

Brinjal - grown mostly in eastern states, including Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar - is a source of vitamins A, C and minerals and white brinjal is said to be good for diabetic patients. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had also expressed apprehensions over Bt Brinjal's impact on traditional medicine while imposing a moratorium on commercial release of Bt Brinjal in January 2010.

To overcome these doubts, the health ministry officials suggested a "compositional comparative analysis" of both traditional brinjal and Bt brinjal to ascertain any alteration, which the GEAC accepted.

That was the only issue of consensus at the GEAC meeting to decide the future of Bt brinjal. Most of the 16 biotechnology experts wanted Bt brinjal's limited release under strict monitoring but PM Bhargava, founder of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), opposed the move.

"Once the Bt seeds are released the damage to the environment is done," Bhargava said, while seeking 39 additional bio-safety tests on the GM crop before its commercial release. Other experts termed his additional tests as "utopian protocols" which cannot be accepted in Indian conditions. Hence, no decision on Bt Brinjal's limited release could be taken.

Another issue of dissent was whether India wants GM food crops or not. "Many experts were of the view that the government should give a clear cut direction on whether GM food is required or not for the country," the minutes of the meeting said, adding that if the perception is not clear it will affect the ongoing research. Others said it was not an issue of discussion.

To strike a balance between differing voices, the GEAC chairperson MF Farooqui invoked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech of January 2010, where the PM wanted India to pursue biotechnology to sustain its food safety but not without answering all questions on safety.

The GEAC also asked all expert members to submit their suggestions on the way forward and additional studies needed for Bt Brinjal can be commercially released, while making it clear that the final decision on Bt Brinjal will take time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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