|
In the modern era, technological innovations play a pivotal role in fostering rapid economic growth of many major economies. And, India is no exception. The intensive use of technology has, indeed, changed the fortunes of many industries, such as telecom, software, electronics and pharmaceuticals. Nevertheless, opinion is divided across the globe, including the agrarian economies like India, when it comes to usage of agricultural technology.
Globally, there are a few proponents of the controversial biotech breakthrough—Genetically Modified (GM) crops—who hail that these crops offer a solution to eliminate hunger and malnutrition in the developing countries. However, these biotech crops have been confronting serious opposition from many parts of the world on the grounds of bio-safety and health concerns. Amidst these unabated debates about GM crops, interestingly, the Indian Supreme Court has lifted an eight-month-old ban on field trails of GM crops and has allowed them to be continued, subject to certain stipulations.
GM crops are produced through a genetic engineering process by incorporating a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which is supposed to reduce the usage of pesticides as well as increase the crop yield. Papiya Bhattacharya, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore elucidates "A genetically modified crop results when a functional gene is introduced into the natural DNA of a wild type crop or the function of an existing gene is knocked off or a different kind of modification is brought about in the existing genome; in other words the natural DNA of an organism is tampered with." |
