Farm sector activists on Tuesday flayed the Intelligence Bureau’s (IB) report blaming NGOs for impeding development in India, especially with regard to genetically modified foods.

Alleging that the IB report would be used by foreign corporates to take over India’s seed sector, activists Vandana Shiva of Navdanya, Suman Sahai of Gene Campaign, Aruna Rodrigues and Kavita Kuruganti termed the report as “anti-national” and “guilty of contempt of court since it attacks the Technical Expert Committee set up by the Supreme Court to look into the issues of GMOs and biosafety.” The case is still being heard.

In a press release issued here on Tuesday, the activists said the special section on GMOs (genetically modified/engineered organisms) in the IB report clearly supported the introduction of GM crops in Indian agriculture.

They said the report was an “outrageous insult to our Parliamentarians”, as it suggested that they had in effect been led ‘by the nose’ by activists and civil society groups and had no competence to address their official mandate on the subject. The Parliamentary Standing Committee had recommended a high-level enquiry into how Bt brinjal was approved by the regulators for commercial release.

Also the IB report failed to refer to the other important official report, the ‘Sopory Committee Report’, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture itself, and was a “stinging commentary on what is wrong with GMO regulation in India”, the activists added.

Fearing that the IB report would “aid the hand-over of ownership of our seeds and foods to multinational corporations”, the release said this if this were to happen it would “haemorrhage India’s agricultural economy.”

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