An open letter to Sonia Gandhi asking her make the Government consult people before tabling the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) bill.

Respected Madam,

The unpredictability and irreversibility of Genetic Engineering (GE) and the uncontrollability of GE crops in the environment coupled with studies pointing at the potential risk to human health and environment has resulted in a controversy across the world around the need for introducing such potentially risky organisms.

The nationwide debate on Bt Brinjal highlighted the concerns of all sections of the society including scientist on GM food in general and Bt Brinjal in particular. This also saw 10 state governments writing to the central government about the concerns they have with Bt Brinjal. All this at that time had lead to a moratorium on Bt Brinjal declared by the Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

Instead of heeding the citizens concerns and establishing a strong regulatory mechanism with the mandate of protecting the health of the citizens, livelihood of our farmers and safety of our environment the Government is going ahead with the establishment Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) which will act as a single window clearance mechanism for GM crops, in effect paving the way for the re-approval of Bt Brinjal.

Here are some of the problems with this bill:

• The approval of GM crops would be based on a presumption that GM crops are a potential solution to all agricultural problems and that the country’s food security crisis can be resolved by introducing GM crops. On the contrary, many scientists agree to fact that real solutions for today’s agricultural problems are in ecological farming methods.
• The approvals also presume that the safety of a GM crop can be best assessed by the company which stands to benefit from the approval.
• The bill proposes a centralised, technocratic decision making authority with no scope for democratic intervention. The apex authority is the BRAI with a chairperson and two members, all scientists with either a biotech or a health background.
• BRAI gives no role to state governments in the approval of GM crops even though agriculture is a state subject under the Indian constitution.
• BRAI sits inside the Ministry of Science and technology creating serious conflict of interest.Dept of Biotechnology – under the Ministry of Science &Technology, has the mandate of promotion of GE crops. DBT funds several GE crop development projects using public funds and is the nodal agency for redirecting funds from foreign governments to GE crop development projects.
• Sections of the bill super cede the Right to Information Act and place the decision to disclose information for public interest with the authority instead of the Central Information Commission or the Delhi high court. The BRAI would kill any informed public debate on GE crops in future, one of the aspects that helped in stopping Bt Brinjal.
• BRAI kills consumer choice and promotes GE polluters as it has no provision for labeling of GE crops, or liability of the crop developer due to economic losses by contamination.

There is a need re-draft the bill, first with an effort to disclose the draft bill and hold public consultations and take in suggestions and issues that are concerning the all citizens of our country.

With the Government failing us by giving an approval for the BRAI bill, our hope lies with the National Advisory Council under your chairpersonship. The fact that the council pro-actively and effectively intervened in the drafting of two important legislations, the Food Security bill and the Communal Violence bill and is doing so with many others, gives us confidence that you will heed the concerns of us citizens and would stop the bill from being tabled in the Parliament in its present form.

The agri-biotech policy of this country is in need for a critical review and we hope the NAC can provide millions of farmers who practice ecological farming a chance to rejuvenate the country’s food production and re-establish its food security.

Sincerely,

SJR Kumar

I AM PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN

13 and Friday the 13th

 

The number 13 has always been and is still considered to be sinister by many. For some, going to office or carrying out any auspicious task is out of the question on the 13th day of a month. Many others consider only Friday the 13th to be inauspicious. Friday the 13th's bad reputation goes back to the days when under pressure from King Philip IV of France, Pope Clement V had ordered his men to capture and burn all the Templar knights, a brigade of powerful crusaders who the king felt were a threat to him.

POISONOUS PLANT: DIEFFENBACHIA

 

This is a very popular indoor plant that we have in our homes and offices.
It is a deadly poison, mainly for the children.

True to the first three letters of its name, it can kill a kid in less than a minute and an adult in 15 minutes. It should be uprooted from pots and gardens and buried safely. If touched, one should never touch ones eyes; it can cause partial or permanent blindness.

Go to this site for some more authentic info
http://www.botanical-online.com/alcaloidesdiefenbaquiaangles.htm

You can download free genuine Antivirus worth Rs. 7500/- from Microsoft with perpetual validity and free upadate, by clicking on the Microsft link.

Thanks

sjr kumar

മൈക്രോസോഫ്റ്റിന്റെ  ഏഴായിരത്തി അഞ്ഞൂറ് രൂപ വിലയുള്ള പുതിയ ആന്റി വൈറസ്‌ നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കു ഫ്രീയായി ഡൌണ്‍ലോഡ് ചെയ്യാം . മുകളില്‍ വലതു വശത്ത് കാണുന്ന ലിങ്കില്‍ ക്ലിക്ക്  ചെയ്യുക.

നന്ദി

എസ് ജെ ആര്‍ കുമാര്‍

Ships Collide Off Mumbai Coast

  Cargo vessel MCS Chitra, which was damaged after a collision with stationary MV Khalijia-III, gets submerged as fears of an oil spill makes authorities take up anti-pollution operations off the coast of Mumbai.

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No sex with ex-CEO of HP, but sorry he's sacked: Jodie

The woman at the centre of the sexual harassment claim that forced the resignation of Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd revealed her identity on Sunday and said she is "surprised and saddened" that Hurd lost his job.

Jodie Fisher, 50, an actress and businesswoman, knew Hurd through her contract jobs with HP's marketing department from 2007 to 2009. HP paid her up to $5,000 per event to greet people and make introductions among executives attending HP events that she helped organise.

She also said - as Hurd has - that they didn't have sex (or any other form of intimate relationship). Which begs the question: What exactly did he do that made her sue him for sexual harassment?

Fisher echoed Hurd's statement that the two never had a sexual relationship, but neither she nor her lawyer, celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, would discuss details of the harassment claim.

Government ensures food for rats: Karat

Slamming the ruling United Progressive Alliance's food management policies, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday said the government was ensuring food for rats by allowing stocks to rot. “The FCI (Food Corporation of India) godowns have 60 million tonnes of foodgrain.

Stocks are overflowing and allowed to rot. What they are ensuring is food safety for rats," Karat said while inaugurating the extended central committee meeting of the party here. The CPI-M leader said the Left parties have been demanding food security for poor since long "but the government is relentless".

PROSTHETIC EYE TRANSFORMED INTO A VIDEO CAMERA

Canada's filmmaker Rob Spence, who lost his right eye when he was a child, shows a prototype of a prosthetic eye which will be transformed into a video camera, during a conference in Brussels. Spence, director and producer in Toronto, said he would use the eye-cam the same way he uses a video camera to carry out the so-called "EyeBorg Project". In using his eye as a wireless video camera, Spence wants to make a documentary about how video and humanity intersect especially with regards to surveillance.

PETA PROTESTS WEATHER ATROCITIES

An activist of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) lays on the ground with fake blood smeared on her during protests against whaling at the Faroe Islands on August 5, 2010 in Berlin.

Shocking: Liquid soap for Rs 9,379

The Suresh Kalmadi-led Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) may have some more explaining to do. A scrutiny of the final inventory and price list of several “overlays” — movable fixtures and fittings for venues and stadia — hired from four foreign firms reveals major anomalies.

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Youngest Asst Prof at IIT

A Patna-born prodigy, Tathagat Avtar Tulsi, 22, who completed high school at the age of 9, had a B.Sc at 10, an M.Sc in Physics at 12, and a PhD in Quantum Computing from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, at 21, was appointed as assistant professor at IIT Bombay - the youngest man to take up the post. Tulsi started teaching Physics at IIT Bombay from July 19. He chose IIT Bombay over Waterloo University, Canada, and the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Bhopal, both of which had offered him jobs. Hailed early as a wonder boy, Tulsi suffered humiliation in August 2001 when a delegation of scientists taken by the Department of Science & Technology to Lindau in Germany for an interaction with Nobel laureates, suggested that he was a "fake prodigy" who had "mugged up" jargon which he spouted unthinkingly. A hurt Tulsi went into a shell for several years, only to return to news this February when he became the youngest holder of a PhD in India.

Shashi Tharoor to tie knot third time and more

Tharoor to get hitched the third time

Former Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar during a Bharatnatyam recital in New Delhi on Wednesday. He's been married and divorced twice. Now, as he is planning to tie the knot for the third time with longtime friend Sunanda Pushkar, on August 17 -- at the start of the Malyalam New Year -- one wonders if he will be third time lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tharoor -- whose divorce from his second wife, Canadian Christa Giles, came through last week -- is likely to tie the knot at the Sree Padmanabha Swami Temple at Thiruvananthapuram, his constituency. But, he may hold the wedding early and hold a reception on August 17.

Solar tsunami’ may hit Earth anytime

The Earth could be hit by a “solar tsunami” anytime now as an unusually complex magnetic eruption on the Sun has flung a large cloud of electrically charged particles towards our planet, scientists have warned.

Solar activity is shown in an image made by NASA's SOHO Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument. The Earth could be hit by a “solar tsunami” anytime soon as an unusually complex magnetic eruption on the Sun has flung a large cloud of electrically charged particles towards our planet. REUTERS File

Several satellites, including NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), recorded on Sunday a small solar flare erupting above sunspot 1092, the size of the Earth. The satellites also recorded a large filament of cool gas stretching across the Sun's northern hemisphere also exploded into space

Solar activity is shown in an image made by NASA's SOHO Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO). Several satellites recorded a large filament of cool gas stretching across the Sun’s northern hemisphere which also exploded into space. REUTERS File

The explosion, called a coronal mass ejection, was aimed directly towards Earth, which then sent a "solar tsunami" racing 93 million miles across space, the New Scientist reported. When the violent cloud hits, which could be anytime now, it could spark aurorae in the skies around the poles and pose a threat to satellites, although not a severe one, it said.

Solar flares produce seismic waves and gigantic seismic quakes in the Sun's interior, as shown here. The explosion, called a coronal mass ejection, was aimed directly towards Earth, which then sent a “solar tsunami” racing 93 million miles across space. REUTERS File

Despite being separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometres, the two events may be linked, said astronomers who studied the images from SDO that hint at a shock wave travelling from the flare into the filament.

"These are two distinct phenomena but they are obviously related," said Len Culhane, a solar physicist at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London.

The Sun is "sneezing" a huge bubble of hydrogen gas,as seen by the SOHO explorer, a joint NASA-European Space Agency project.REUTERS File

Experts said the wave of supercharged gas will likely reach the Earth on Tuesday, when it will buffet the natural magnetic shield protecting Earth. It is likely to spark spectacular displays of aurora or northern and southern lights.

"This eruption is directed right at us," said Leon Golub, of Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. "It's the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time," Golub was quoted as saying by the Telegraph.

History Mystery

Some mysterious facts about two presidents of America and the US Dollar.