By IANS,
New Delhi: A day after Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh trashed the report of the country’s top six academies favouring Bt Brinjal, the academies Tuesday said their main recommendation on limited release of genetically modified crop remains unchanged.
“It is our belief that the approach and the main recommendations would remain unaffected by the detected glitch in the drafting process. It is important not to throw the baby with the bath water,” said M. Vijayan, president, Indian National Science Academy.
Ramesh had said Monday that the report by the academies reflected the view of “one Anand Kumar which I knew even before the moratorium was put on Bt Brinjal” and lacked the view of the larger scientific community.
Vijayan accepted that a slip has occurred and corrective measures will be taken.
“We agree that it is inappropriate for the report to contain chunks of material from another article, even if it was authored by a Fellow of participating academy,” he said.
The environment ministry in March had asked the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Medical Sciences and National Academy of Sciences (India) to submit a report on GM crops.
The academies submitted the report to the ministry last week.
An advocacy group ‘Coalition for GM-Free India’ Saturday alleged that the report of the academies was plagiarised from an article ‘Bt Brinjal: A Pioneering Push’ in Biotech News – a publication of the Department of Biotechnology written by Anand Kumar, a supporter of Bt brinjal.
The ministry had imposed moratorium on release of Bt Brinjal on Feb 9.