{"id":14144,"date":"2015-11-04T07:05:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T12:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14144"},"modified":"2015-11-04T07:05:20","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T12:05:20","slug":"india-drives-forward-first-gmo-crops-under-veil-of-secrecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14144","title":{"rendered":"India Drives Forward First GMO Crops Under Veil of Secrecy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2015\/11\/04\/india-drives-forward-first-gmo-crops-under-veil-of-secrecy\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">India Drives Forward First GMO Crops Under Veil of Secrecy<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"post_meta\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-76328 alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2015\/11\/shutterstock_236726830.jpg\" alt=\"shutterstock_236726830\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<p>A secret application has been made to India\u2019s GEAC (Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee) for a new variety of GMO mustard to be released for cultivation.<\/p>\n<p>If accepted, this would be the first GMO variety to be approved in India \u2013 and could open the way for many more such applications for other major crops including staple foods like rice, wheat and chickpeas.<\/p>\n<p>According to India\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/article\/economy-policy\/centre-receives-proposal-for-commercial-planting-of-gm-mustard-115103101209_1.html\" target=\"_blank\">Business Standard magazine<\/a>, Deepak Pental, developer of the \u2018Dhara Mustard Hybrid 11\u2019 (DMH11) mustard seed at Delhi University, said that he had sent the proposal to the GEAC in mid-September. The GEAC is expected to meet again next week to consider the application.<\/p>\n<p>The GEAC, part of the Ministry of Environment, Forests &amp; Climate Change, is the statutory authority that appraises proposals for field trials and commercial sale of GM crops. The final decision rests with the Union environment, forests and climate change minister.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/envfor.nic.in\/sites\/default\/files\/geac\/status.html\" target=\"_blank\">official website of the GEAC<\/a>\u00a0makes no mention of this or any other recent application \u2013 indeed the entire website appears to be many years out of date and unmaintained. The most recent \u2018status of pending projects\u2019 reports\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/envfor.nic.in\/divisions\/csurv\/geac\/geac-pen-90307.htm\" target=\"_blank\">dates from March 2007<\/a>. No minutes of meetings have been posted since April 2012.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s\u00a0<em>Economic Times<\/em>\u00a0also reported on\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1801043064\">3rd September<\/span>\u00a0that a secret meeting of the GEAC had been\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/2015-09-03\/news\/66178473_1_geac-field-trials-gm-crops\" target=\"_blank\">called that day<\/a>\u00a0to discuss 17 applications for field trials of six GMO including varieties of cotton, corn, brinjal, chickpea, rice and wheat.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe GEAC did meet today and certain decisions were taken. However, they cannot be shared at this stage as minutes have to be made and the minister\u2019s approval is required as well\u201d<\/em>, an unnamed\u00a0<em>\u201csenior official from the Union Ministry of Environment &amp; Forests (MoEF)\u201d<\/em>\u00a0told ET, which added:<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India Drives Forward First GMO Crops Under Veil of Secrecy A secret application has been made to India\u2019s GEAC (Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee) for a new variety of GMO mustard to be released for cultivation. If accepted, this would be the first GMO variety to be approved in India \u2013 and could open the way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[5493,10467,10465,10466,5608,372,422,710],"class_list":["post-14144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-counterpunch","tag-economic-times","tag-geac","tag-genetic-engineering-appraisal-committee","tag-genetically-modified-organisms","tag-gmo","tag-india","tag-secrecy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14145,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144\/revisions\/14145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}