New Delhi, Feb 14 (Inditop.com) Is there a connection between the environment minister’s morning walks and the moratorium on Bt Brinjal? Some say Jairam Ramesh’s decision may well have been different if he had taken the path less trodden – quite literally.
Those in the environment ministry say Ramesh took his strolls in the pathways around Lodhi Gardens and not in the experimental farms of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI).
While the IARI farms at Pusa are all about new forms of biotechnology, Lodhi Gardens focuses on organic farming, complete with a special section on medicinal herbs.
Also, at Pusa, the minister’s fellow morning walkers would have been the IARI scientists who are all for genetically modified brinjal or baingan, while at the Lodhi Gardens he usually meets retired bureaucrats who have apparently been advising him to use the precautionary principle when it comes to allowing GM foods.
Exasperated IARI scientists are now describing the ex-bureaucrats as “baingan bygones”!
