Media Resource Centre : Feature Service

A new bill leaves little scope for dissent on GMOs

by Savvy Soumya Mishra

If the nationwide furore over Bt brinjal was driven by the fear of unsafe food being pushed down the throat, the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) bill goes a step further to silence all opposition. The bill will bring about changes in regulating the research, transport, import, manufacture and use of genetically modified (GM) products in the country.

Technology is helping public sector banks find customers in rural India. This is part of the Centre's efforts to include villages in the organised financial system; to ensure they are not cheated of their wages. Pilots show promise 

Government offers Rs 25,000 each to 109 BPL families to relocate; villagers turn down the offer

by Ashutosh Mishra, Khurda

Pabani Pradhan, 42, looks 60. She can’t walk on her own. Joginath Pradhan, 60, Pabani’s neighbour, uses crutches. Sukant, 24, the sole breadwinner of a family of six, cannot move out of the village to fit tiles in people’s houses any more because his body has become stiff. Fluorosis has crippled them, and other residents of Balsingh-Singpur in Khurda district of Orissa.

Vedanta gets tracts of thorium rich land along the Orissa coast for a university. Allegations fly 

by Ruhi Kandhari

Mining giant Vedanta’s proposed university in Orissa will not only be one of the few in the world with an outlay of Rs 15,000 crore and spread across 2,400 hectares, it will also sit on land rich in thorium deposits.