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EDITORIAL
Talk Don't Run
Parliament needs debate and discussion, not a wasteful
wildcat strike
Undoubtedly the
most unfortunate fallout of the spycam scandal has been the disruption
of Parliament for nearly 10 days. Any discussion on the railway and general
budgets has been prevented. Thirty- five bills scheduled for introduction
have been put on hold. Lok Sabha activity has been reduced to rushing
to the Well of the House and shouting slogans, one more tasteless than
the other. If the Rajya Sabha has been better, no one has noticed. A quick
estimate suggests over Rs 40 crore of taxpayers' money has gone down the
drain. A minister has been forced to explain his resignation in a television
studio rather than before the national legislature. Now the leader of
the Opposition wants a similar slice of prime time. This after her party
has refused to let the two Houses meet unless the government puts in its
papers. India's chosen politicians are making a collective spectacle of
themselves.
 It
is easy to point out that the BJP-and many of its partners in the NDA-were
equally anarchic when in opposition. After all, it was Atal Bihari Vajpayee's
party that famously shut down Parliament in the aftermath of the telecom
swindle in December 1995. In the winter session that year, Parliament
was supposed to work for 197 hours; it met for less than 50. Parliamentary
democracy depends much on conventions-India's unique contribution is politics
WWF style. There is now talk of the standing committees-especially those
that are headed by non-NDA MPs-not being allowed to carry out their mandate
of monitoring ministries. Even if this cussedness is not ultimately resorted
to, democracy has been taken for an almighty ride over the past fortnight.
When Parliament reconvenes in mid-April, the tempers and contrived indignation
must be forgotten. India wants its representatives to have their say on
the defence bribery issue-but in Parliament, not on chat shows.
Gene
Revolution
Why biotech phobia will only keep tomorrow's Indians
hungry
Speaking at a conference
in Delhi recently, Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug voiced the obvious when
he warned against ignoring biotechnology in agriculture. Consider India's
case. After four decades of food sufficiency Malthus is back in business.
In the 1990s, for the first decade since the green revolution, the rate
of growth of food production fell behind the rate of population growth.
To feed every Indian in the year 2011-12, food production needs to grow
at 3.4 per cent a year. The current rate is 1.8 per cent. The gap is clear.
How will it be filled? Certainly not by chemical fertilisers, which operate
on the law of diminishing returns. Organic fertilisers may be beneficial
for the soil but in terms of sheer scale they are useless. The world's
entire organic fertiliser resource can meet the food requirements of four
billion people. Earthlings already number six billion. Finally, there
is a limit to the arable land available. Mankind's only option is biotechnology.
 The
strength of biotechnology is that it doesn't limit itself to quantity.
it promises multi-purpose, all-in-one crops. For instance, the rice genome
has been sequenced and work is on to identify and modify genes that will
make it amenable to deserts, swamps and salty soil conditions. Admittedly
this overwhelming power is double-edged. The importance of safety and
stringent regulations in releasing genetically modified (GM) products
is beyond argument. Fundamentally this requires rational, informed debate-not
hysteria. While it is true that long-term consequences of GM foods are
not entirely known, such crops have been grown on 40 million hectares
of land in a dozen countries over the past five years. They have led to
no scientifically proven disaster. India cannot reject this evidence-nor
its own compulsions.
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