India celebrates its Independence Day today, writes Colin Todhunter. But the highly visible system of British colonial dominance has been replaced by a new imperial hegemony: the invisible, systemic rule of transnational capital, enforced by global institutions like the World Bank, while US-based global agribusiness corporations have stepped into the boots of the former East India Company.
… On Independence Day, India's new rulers are the World Bank, IMF, … Colin Todhunter | 15th August 2016 News India Farming Seeds GMOs Corporations Finance yoke-india-cut.jpg India celebrates its …
India's decision to release GMO cotton seeds that incorporate genes for Bt toxins into indigenous 'desi' varieties threatens disaster for the country's small and organic cotton farmers, writes Vandana Shiva. The danger is that the GMO characteristics will spread rapidly into the gene pool, contaminating India's unique heritage of cotton seed diversity.
… Shiva | 9th September 2015 News GMOs Farming India weeding-cotton-s-india-cut.jpg India's decision to release GMO cotton seeds …
India's food system, essentially clean just a generation ago, has been comprehensively contaminated with sugar, bad fats, synthetic additives, GMOs and pesticides under the country's neoliberal 'great leap forwards', writes Colin Todhunter. The result? a surge in obesity, diabetes and cancer incidence, but no let-up in the under-nutrition of those too poor to join in the over-consumption.
… India: obesity, malnutrition and the … | 4th April 2016 Comment Food Farming India Trade GMOs Health Pesticides Toxics mcdonalds-india-cut.jpg India's food system, essentially …
Global oilseed, agribusiness and biotech corporations are engaged in a long term attack on India's local cooking oil producers, writes Colin Todhunter. In just 20 years they have reduced India from self-sufficiency in cooking oil to importing half its needs. Now the government's unlawful attempts to impose GM mustard seed threaten to wipe out a crop at the root of Indian food and farming traditions.
… Beware the GMO Trojan horse! Indian food and farming are under attack Colin Todhunter | 11th February 2016 News India Food Farming Culture GMOs Corporations Regulation Law The Land india-mustard-cut.jpg Global oilseed, …
Seventeen or more secret applications have been made to India's GMO regulators for trials and release of GM crops including rice, wheat, chickpeas, brinjal and mustard, write Colin Todhunter & Oliver Tickell. In a violation of the law regulators have released no information about the applications, raising fears that India's first GMOs will be released with no health, safety or environmental testing.
… Rice, wheat, mustard ... India drives forward first GMO crops under … Oliver Tickell | 3rd November 2015 News India GMOs Farming Food india-mustard-field-cut.jpg Seventeen or more …
Vandana Shiva is more than just a leading scientist, author and campaigner on green issues and anti-globalisation, writes Scott London. She is also among the most prominent of Mahatma Ghandi's intellectual heirs. In this interview, she discusses how this led her to be an outspoken voice on such crucial environmental issues as seed legacy, biopiracy and economic injustice.
… 2016 Comment Seeds Politics Farming GMOs India vandana shiva.jpg Vandana Shiva is more … of his life's work was devoted to renewing India's vitality and regenerating its culture … self-sufficiency. He felt that the soul of India was contained in the village community …
Following allegations of defying India's Biological Diversity Act (BDA), Monsanto faces a lawsuit from the Indian government, reports Rosie Spinks
… How India squared up to Monsanto’s 'biopiracy' … Food And Farming Monsanto GMOs Biopiracy India bt_brinjal_monsanto.jpg Following allegations of defying India's Biological Diversity Act (BDA), Monsanto faces a lawsuit from the Indian government, reports Rosie Spinks What …
Heathcote Williams remembers India's great campaigner Professor Nanjunda's whose direct actions against Monsanto, KFC, McDonalds, Coca-Cola and the WTO inspired a nation and created an unstoppable movement of 10 million ...
… News GMOs Food Farming Corporations Trade India nanjunda-2-cut.jpg Heathcote Williams remembers India's great campaigner Professor Nanjunda's … unstoppable movement of 10 million ... "What India needs today is the Gandhian formula for …
India's farmers are the targets of structural violence aimed at uprooting indigenous agriculture and replacing it with an intensive corporate model based on GMOs and agrochemicals, writes Colin Todhunter. But as Monsanto's GM cotton succumbs to insect infestations despite repeated pesticide applications, agroecological farming is an increasingly attractive option for cultivators.
… pride, Monsanto's fall: playing God with the Indian farmer Colin Todhunter | 19th February 2016 News Farming India GMOs Toxics Corporations Ecology cotton-farmers-india-cut.jpg India's farmers are the targets …
India's Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee stands accused of Contempt of Court for evading Supreme Court orders to carry out full biosafety tests on GM crops and publish its data, writes Colin Todhunter. The immediate issue is a herbicide tolerant GM mustard now approved for large scale trials, while earlier findings remain under an impenetrable veil of official secrecy.
… India's top GMO regulator's 'Contempt of … Todhunter | 15th December 2015 News GMOs Law India Farming Biodiversity Regulation mustard2-cut.jpg India's Genetic Engineering Appraisal …
A new study finds that Indian farmers in rain-fed areas are being driven to suicide from the increased cost of growing Bt GMO cotton varieties that confer no benefits to them, writes Eva Sirinathsinghji. The extra expenses arise from buying new seeds each year, along with increased chemical inputs, while suffering inadequate access to agronomic information.
… GM cotton really is helping to drive Indian farmers to suicide Dr Eva … | 11th August 2015 News GMOs Farming India cotton-farmer-india-cut.jpg A new study finds that Indian …
Plans to introduce a controversial GM variety of brinjal (aubergine / eggplant) in Bangladesh are opposed by 100 civil society organisations around the world. As Mae Wan Ho reports, the issue is arousing powerful passions ...
… | 3rd January 2014 News GMOs Gm Food Farming India Bangladesh Philippines … company tried to commercialize Bt Brinjal in India several years ago and failed. No … and that only came to light when the Indian Supreme Court ordered the company to …
Vandana Shiva exposes the link between the use of genetically modified cotton seeds and the tragic suicide of 284,694 farmers in India over 17 years.
… | 19th November 2013 Comment GMOs Farming India Monsanto navdanya-vandana-farm.png … and the tragic suicide of 284,694 farmers in India over 17 years. The debate over … (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court of India and made up of India's most eminent and …
In her new book The Vandana Shiva Reader, the celebrated campaigner and scientist deplores the way in which the Green Revolution forced India's poorest farmers off their land, writes Colin Tudge. Now she fears even worse outcomes in Africa where a GMO-fuelled farming revolution is under way.
… the way in which the Green Revolution forced India's poorest farmers off their land, writes … of wheat, first in Mexico and then in India, is seen as a triumph of western-style … events unfolding from the midst of the Indian farming communities that are most …
The organizers of tomorrow's International Monsanto Tribunal describe it as a 'moral trial', while the company dismisses it as a 'mock trial' and 'stunt'. The truth, writes Pete Dolack, is that it's about much more than this one company. On trial is the entire neoliberal system of 'free market' finance and monopoly capitalism.
… and consumers around the world should fear." India has no laws Monsanto is bound to respect … an examination of how it forced its way into India. The introduction of corporate … agriculture has been so catastrophic in India that more than 300,000 farmers have …
There's no such thing as 'healthy food' if it's not produced by sustainable farming systems on living soils, Patrick Holden told the recent 'Food: The Forgotten Medicine' conference. But after 70 years of industrial farming, there's a huge job to be done to restore our depleted soils and the impoverished genetic diversity of our seeds and crops.
… Albert Howard, a man who had been sent out to India at the height of the Empire, a century … Government, to encourage the people of India to adopt western diets. Fortunately, … his mission that he had nothing much to teach India about sound nutrition. He recognised too …
How can progressive movements rise above merely being right, to mount effective mass opposition to corporate rule and the dictatorship of the super-wealthy? By learning from Gandhi, writes Colin Todhunter, and devising new campaigns that engage with people's everyday concerns - like access to safe, wholesome, affordable, 'open source' food.
… who felt that protest against British rule in India should for instance focus more directly … on an item of daily use among ordinary Indians, such a campaign could resonate more … on the coast (by evaporation of sea water), Indians were forced to purchase it from the …
Corporate lobbyists and their tame politicians love to present GMOs as being humanitarian in purpose, writes Colin Todhunter - as if they exist only to feed the starving millions. But if that's the case, why are they silent on genocidal land grabs, agrochemical poisonings and the destruction of efficient, productive smallholder farming?
… Comment GMOs Farming Corporations Politics India Mexico Argentina Trade … to read about the situation in Mexico). 5. In India, 300,000 farmers have committed suicide … on Agriculture seems likely to do to India. The aim is to dismantle Indian …
The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture made its high-profile launch at the New York Climate Summit. But for a huge coalition of civil society organizations, it's a 'greenwash' initiative designed to promote intensive profit-driven industrial agriculture at the expense of small farmers, environment, and the real solutions.
… and Communication (BNNRC) Beyond Copenhagen, India Biofuelwatch, UK Biowatch South Africa … development consultants society (CECOEDECON), India Cecosesola, Barquisimeto, Venezuela … Africa Gramya Resource Centre for Women, India Groupe d'Action de Paix et de Formation …
The dominant story about the future of the world food supply is logical, well known and widely disseminated, writes Jonathan Foley. It is also completely wrong.
… who are getting richer - mainly in China, India and some other countries - and, if … middle-class people in the cities of China, India, Indonesia and elsewhere. Will they … major outcome, except for possibly cotton in India, where pest losses were quite severe and …
The Royal Society has form on GM crops, writes the Soil Association - consistently Gung-ho! for the last 20 years, while refusing to engage with critics of the technology or even accept the existence of any problems. Its latest effort represents more of the same, while exposing this once August body to ridicule for its egregious scientific howlers.
… the unfolding tragedy of GM Bt cotton use in India, where there have been widespread crop … widespread moves away from GM cotton seeds in India, often with the support of State …
A study of GMO cotton varieties shows they disrupt an important beneficial soil fungus, writes Eva Sirinathsinghji, apparently due to the Bt insecticide they are engineered to express. Disruption caused by the transgenic cotton to mycorrhizal fungi, and the wider soil ecosystem, may underlie the low yields and poor pest resistance now endemic among Bt GM crops.
… due to the low quality of cotton it produces. India is seeing farmers revert to conventional … diseases such as root rot in cotton plants in India may well be, at least in part, the … seen until the introduction of Bt cotton in India in 2002-2003, affecting 2-3% of crops in …
The Gates Foundation has sunk $15 million into developing GMO 'super bananas' with high levels of pre-Vitamin A, writes Adam Breasley. But the project is using 'stolen' genes from a Micronesian banana cultivar. And what exactly is the point, when delicious, popular, nutritious 'red bananas' rich in caroteinoids are already grown around the tropics?
… benefits across the tropics, but initially to India, Ugana, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda - all … is why the GMO banana project is focused on India and Uganda - the first and second …
The environment secretary's stance on GM food is grotesque, argues Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith.
… by the built-in toxins. In China and India, initial savings from reduced … but there's little evidence of that either. India has just placed a 10-year moratorium on …