Campaign against bill on Bt Crops

BANGALORE: Expressing their discontentment and concern, around 5,150 people from city have signed the petition opposing the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, through a movement started by Greenpeace.“Through this movement, we are asking people of the country to ask Prime Minister to stop this bill as it is not transparent and is against our right to safe food,” Rajesh Krishan, a Greenpeace campaigner, said.The campaign being held across all major metropolitan cities will be on for a month. It aims at generating about one lakh petitions which will then be submitted to the Prime Minister.“Till date, we have received more than 40,000 petitions and interestingly the number of people signing for it is highest from Bangalore, followed by Mumbai- 4,327 and Chennai- 3,148. Bangalore amounts to 14 percent of the total petitioners,” he added.Referring to the drawbacks of the Bill, he said, “If created, the BRAI will become an absolute authority, easing the approval of genetically modified (GM)crops in our country. Then we will not be able to stop them. We need to make the demand against GM food more visible.”“Public opposition saved the brinjal from genetic modification. Now we need to save all our vegetables from this threat,” he added.“The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill remains out of the purview of Right to Information Act. This will create more problems and we cannot seek any information from the authority once the Bill is passed and they will start producing the GM crops,” the Greenpeace campaigner said.