Tag Archives: Podcast

Catherine Colvin – a unique journey in the path of detoxification

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Here is a remarkable story of Catherine Colvin of Minnesota, USA.
Sick from possible excessive exposure to harmful chemicals, she had a series of debilitating illnesses from childhood.

Catherine Colvin

By the time she was in her 40s, the doctors had given up on her, suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Thyroid, and blood cancer to name such a few. She was looking towards another 2 or 3 years to live under lingering pain and disability.

She lost her job, her medical insurance and her support system from the healthcare industry. That was in 2006. She should have been dead long before today.

and yet, she survived, and is well on her way to curing herself, without funds, without medical insurance and without western medicine, so to speak.

Her primary tactic was to remove synthetic chemicals from her life and her lifestyle. Her second line of defence was to study alternative medicine practiced by just about everybody except the western medical profession. And she lived to tell the tale.

  • She was a military child, and was exposed to a chemical environment from childhood.
  • She had allergies, small cysts on skin, asthma. She got sick after vaccines
  • Her mother had her on birth control to her at 13
  • She wen anemic at 14
  • She developed endometriosis symptoms at 14 though not diagnosed until 19
  • Doctors recommended that she should have a hysterectomy because it was the only cure and she would never have children anyway. She did not have the hysterectomy at the time, thankfully – and eventually got to be a mother of two healthy sons – now, 29 and 34.
  • She had multiple sclerosis from childhood.
  • In 1989 she finally had a hysterectomy
  • In 2005 She was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
  • Same year, 2006 she was confirmed to have multiple sclerosis
  • Also in 2006, she was diagnosed with acute paraproteinemia – a blood cancer.
  • She was to face life expectancy of next 2 to 3 years. She should not be alive today at all.
  • She lost her high paying job. She lost her medical insurance. Doctors stopped speaking with her. She only had to wait for death.
  • But she outlived all expectations, and cured most of her illness, without the medical establishment, without insurance and mostly without western medicine.
  • The most effective treatment she did – was remove synthetic chemicals from her life.
  • She learned what alternative treatments, usually outside the U.S. such as Chinese, Indian, African, Latin American and American Indian treatments.
  • Changed diet drastically – eating things that were easy to digest and beginning to heal her gut microbiome.
  • She avoided trans fats, sugars
  • She went on celiac diet for about 6 months
  • She detoxed herself with the lemonade diet or Master Cleanse for a few months and now twice yearly
  • She used mega-doses of zero toxicity supplements such as liposomal vitamin C which she can now make at home, vitamin D, E, K, A, the B’s and others.
  • She mixed her own RO (reverse osmosis) water with baking soda and sea salt and trace minerals
  • She used dehydrated greens 3 times daily as a drink
  • She used 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide to dilute and use for soaking in baths and washing vegetables
  • And she went organic – organic – organic.
  • Within months most of her symptoms where receding. Her blood cancer started curing itself. Today, it is undetectable.
  • Multiple sclerosis started healing. She could walk a block without collapsing.
  • She tried every unconventional treatment. She found out that, for her thyroid, in some nations, patients are given a diet of the thyroid gland of a cow or pig, chopped up and raw. She found the same treatment used in the west for pets, such as thyroid issues for a pet dog or cat – but not humans.She ordered thyroid gland from an organic grass fed cow, for her imaginary “sick dog”. Then she ground out the meat, and ate it raw herself, along with enzymes to help her digest it (she had gone vegetarian by then, so she needed help to digest raw meat). Her thyroid problem is fast improving.
  • She removed chemicals from her life by tossing out store sold soap and makes her own, for washing her clothes, her dishes and even herself.


Today, she has not only outlives expectations, her blood cancer cannot be detected, her sheer tiredness is gone. She has a spring in her step. At 53, she is healing and aging at the same time. Far as I can tell, she is going to outlive me and many others of our generations.
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This is the story of my friend Catherine Colvin of Minnesota, USA.

I am editing my interview with her – for a two part podcast.

The picture above is a recent one – well on her way to healing.

Introducing – Catherine Colvin – who defied death by stepping away from western medicine, diet, and to a large extent, rejecting the traditional western lifestyle – though she kept the motorcycle.

Dr. Don Huber talks on his work on Glyphosate in agriculture

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Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus of Purdue University, Idaho, is a microbiologist and plant pathologist that has worked for over half a century on chemicals such as Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s patented herbicide Roundup. He is well aware of how the chemical damages plants, as well as soil organisms, and how it damages the colony of gut bacteria that perform essential symbiotic services for humans and other higher animals. IN short, Glyphosate in our environment is a disaster that will have long term effects, spanning several generations, and there seem to be no end in site of this avalanche of bad chemicals permeating our neighbourhood.

 I spoke with him a few times over the past one month, to compile a 37 minute podcast. Further, he has sent me a CD full of information of his papers and independent studies, powerpoint presentations, PDF files, charts and other material related to this subject.

 Salient points of the talks are:

  • Dr. Huber has been researching and working on the ill effects of Glyphosate and other herbicides for 55 years.
  • Glyphosate is not just a herbicide but also patented as an antibiotic. Both these functions, and its ability to chelate or capture important metals and minerals – essentially deny a whole host of micro organisms that depend on those metals to do their work, and often will kill classes of bacteria even in human guts, wrecking the persons biology and health.
  • It disrupts the Shikimate pathway used by many gut bacteria for biosynthesis of important amino acids that we need. Also, while such beneficial bacteria are denied sustenance and are often killed off by Glyphosate. Not just that. Some of these bacteria prevent space for some of the harmful pathogens that are also in the plants we eat, thus protecting us from harm. However, when Glyphosate damages the good bacteria, it creates vacancy in our gut that can now be filled by the harmful pathogens which are also insensitive to Glyphosate, dealing us a double blow.
  • Dr. Samsel and Seneff have worked on how Glyphosate helps increase our susceptibility to disease. These studies should be read and understood.
  • Dr. Nancy Swanson has plotted the correlation graphs from information obtained from official sources such as Centre for Disease Control that points to identical rise of Glyphosate application and rise of chronic illnesses reported in hospitals.
  • Soybean oil has been found to have 40 ppm of Glyphosate, which will kill all sorts of useful bacteria in our gut. The herbicide will also chelate and immobilize cobalt, manganese, iron, zinc and copper that we need ourselves for our own good health. Livers are affected. A very small part 1/10 of a ppm is often enough to cause serious harm. Even illness such as E.oli, salmonella etc can rise directly proportional to the increase of Glyphosate and GMO, along with autism, leaky gut, gluten intolerance,  Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diarrhoea, and similar very major illnesses begin to come back in pandemic proportions because of the disruption and destruction of our micro-biome.
  • Once a patient’s gut bacteria has been seriously damaged, the only good cure may be fecal transplant. fecal bacteriotherapy or stool transplant. This essentially means taking stool from a healthy person and re-inserting it anally into a patient, transplanting the healthy bacteria to recolonize the gut. This has a high chance of recovery, but the patient has to onto organic diet, else he or she is likely to fall sick again.
  • Independent science research through public funding is nearly gone. Science is now mostly funded by corporations who have a vested interest in funding studies that find good effects of their technology rather than possible unwanted side effects. So, science and technology is losing its neutral position and objectivity. Normally, Dr. Huber would not get funding for his work that mostly finds the dangers of using Glyphosate. He managed to conduct his long term study by doing independent consulting work and then donating to the Purdue University as grant money to support his research on herbicides. In other words he was partially or wholly, funding himself.
  • There are written public statements of 26 scientists selected by the USDA to determine safety of genetically engineered plants, back in the 1960s. All 26 scientists wrote to the Govt. that they were unable to perform their work as the corporations would not provide access to information and were also prohibited to publish any finding to the public. Therefore they could not be objective in their investigation and without it the scientists could not do justice to the task.
  • When asked why so many diseases are increasing to pandemic levels, the official response is they do not know why. There is a perception that the relevant departments of the Govt does not want to know the cause.
  • Local troubles such as Yakima valley birth defect epidemic is a case in point where babies are still born and birth defects involving half the brain fails to develop in babies. This is suspected to be directly related to excessive application of Glyphosate in the farm and even in the water streams.
  • Some Cattle Farmers are going out of business because cattle fertility has dropped so much that half the newborns are still born and the business becomes economically unviable.
  • Europe is realizing they are in a dangerous situation with regard to Glyphosate, although their exposure is less than in USA. Yet, Dr. Huber laments that in USA people do not appear to be as alarmed as in Europe.
  • 300 million pounds  of Glyphosate is being used in agriculture annually in the US, and providing such food to animals and dumping such powerful herbicides in the environment indiscriminately – we can expect dangerous effects on our environment.
  • This is a crisis for our children. Autism is around 1 in 50 today. it is going to rise to 1 in 2 in the next seven to 14 years. Back in 1960 it was 1 or 2 in a hundred thousand.
  • Fecal transplant can be beneficial treatment for a number of illness – autism in kids, leaky guts, crone, celiac, Parkinson’s and even diabetes. Glyphosate is also related to cancer – childhood cancer. Dr. Huber does not know if fecal transplant can cure this kind of cancer once initiated by effects of Glyphosate. Seralini research is an example. Although his study was not set up to check cancer, it did show signs of cancer development in rats.
  • Regarding testing water, human blood or urine for presence of Glyphosate – Microbe Inotech Laboratories (http://www.microbeinotech.com/) can conduct these tests./ It might be useful to check with them if they also test for AMPA, especially if water sample are to be tested. IN Human Urine sample, presence of AMPA is expected to be rather small and could be ignored. AMPA is the first breakdown product of Glyphosate and is just as toxic as Glyphosate. Therefore, for testing soil or water, testing for both Glyphosate and AMPA combined would give a better result, since the percentage of AMPA can be more than 50% at times, the rest being Glyphosate that has not yet broken down.
  • If there is shortage of funds for large scale testing, then first concentrating on testing of Urine would be a better way to give an indication of exposure by humans to this dangerous herbicide.
  • How does one get rid of Glyphosate ? Detoxifying soil or water from Glyphosate is possible, through chelation. But if Glyphosate is in the human body already, it needs to be eliminated, and that can cause difficulties. Kidney failure in central America and Sri Lanka are relevant here, as Kidney shuts down and cannot handle the accumulation of Glyphosate.
  • Dr. Huber goes to Guatemala, as a consultant, regularly, as they in central America and many other countries there are trying to find ways to ban or remove Glyphosate from their environment. Their effort to ban Glyphosate is being challenged at courts, and the corporations have tried to confuse the issue and applying pressure on the Govts. A lot of farm workers in sugar plantations have died last year due kidney failure. Brasil and Argentina are also looking at banning Glyphosate. Hawaii has banned it but they are being sued now.
  • You can listen to the podcast by clicking the link below or check it up at iTunes as a podcast under my name (Tony Mitra).

Feel free to send me a note or a suggestion at  tony.mitra@gmail.com

Sheryl McCumsy of Alberta and her efforts to ban lawn pesticides

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I met Sheryl in December 2013 during the GE Foods Talk event at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is among the many ordinary citizens of Canada attempting to engage in extra-ordinary work, of singly and collectively trying to wrench Canadian democracy back from the clutches of lobby power, in the field of food, health and environment.

Sheryl McCumsy

It has been my perception that this war on our soil, water and air by an unending avalanche of toxic GMO and pesticides in the name of corporate profit, will be won or lost not so much by bigwigs, famous people, NGOs, politicians, scientists or activists, but by the ordinary people like Sheryl McCumsy that are coming out of the woodwork everywhere, in their effort to do something to resist this menace.

Sheryl is a homemaker and a student with a background in microbiology. She intends to meet with the Municipality of Edmonton, Alberta, to enquire and cajole them into adopting a by-law that bans use of harmful cosmetic lawn pesticides. This is something that has been done by hundreds of Municipalities across Canada, but not so much in Alberta and not in Edmonton. She also intends to work with groups such as Albertans for food safety, to further take on the issues of Municipalities adopting resolutions to declare themselves to be GMO free.

I spoke with Sheryl on phone on December 22, 2013, to prepare this podcast of her hopes and plans. It is a 20 minute podcast. You can listen to it by directly clicking the player at the bottom of this page. You can also subscribe to it through iTunes, where my podcasts are available under my name – Tony Mitra – save it on your iPod, iPhone or other music players, and listen to them at leisure. The logo of my podcast in iTunes is shown at right.

A talk with Devinder Sharma – Part 1

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Devinder Sharma

Mr. Devinder Sharma is an agricultural scientist, journalist, writer and policy analyst who is well known around the world.

He had been called as an expert to be part of a working group in Geneva to prepare the groundwork on rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, conducted in July 2013. Mr. Sharma had presented his paper there, and some of his points appears to have been adopted into the background paper since published by the Geneva Academy, of which I have a copy for personal study.

The first paragraph of the last page of the report by Christophe Golay on the Legal Reflections on the rights of peasants and other working groups in rural areas, prepared based on the above meeting of the working committee states :

  • The negotiation that begins within the working group mandated to elaborate a UN Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas is a new exercise for peasant organizations, and in particular La Via Campesina. But it is not a new exercise for the UN and states that have been engaged in similar negotiation in the last 40 years, when they drafted international instruments protecting the rights of women, children, migrant workers and members of their families, persons belonging to minorities, human rights defenders, persons with disabilities, and indigenous peoples. 

Sharma had started out studying Plant Breeding and Genetics and holds a Masters degree. He has been working for ten years with a mainstream Indian newspaper as an agricultural expert. During this time, the newspaper encouraged him to go to remote corners of India and spend sufficient time there to soak in the ambience and lifestyle, and the trials and tribulations of rural India, before composing his articles on what works and what might not, to improve rural Indian agriculture, lifestyle or economy.

 This is something the media did in the past, as a social duty. This is also what the media does not engage with any more, ever since corporate moguls began controlling most of the world media, and kept profit as the main goal for their existence – quality and breadth of news delivered was no more to be the focus.

The first part of the talk covers basically the following points:

  • Extreme bias towards the west and high-tech solutions within the Indian education system, and the thinking of both the educated class and the policy makers. This is pushing India towards economic dependence and subservience to the west. India will have to find its own solutions by thinking outside of the western box. Unfortunately, not enough folks are listening. This however, is a global problem, and not just an Indian problem. I can relate to this sitting in Canada.
  • Exploitation of the rural landscape by the urban culture: this was noted and eloquently penned by Tagore a century ago. This has been the topic of discussion between greats of the time, including conversation between Tagore and Gandhi, towards seeking a solution for a free India of the future. Tagore had rightly realized that pushing the British out would not solve the problem of exploitation, which was systemic, and would need a change in paradigm – a new thinking and a new system to redress the relationship between urban and rural societies. Mr. Devinder Sharma has pointed out that this exploitation has not only not been eradicated by Independent India after the end of British Rule – it has in fact increased. While exploitation was limited to the labour of the rural population, now it has expanded to the resources lying under the feet of Rural india, and also to the very land they had been using for millennia. Everything is now being stolen. Again, this is not just a problem of India – but a global problem, created by free trade, corporatocracy and a hegemony of the west.
  • Biodiversity – this is the saddest story of all – how the worlds biodiversity and richness of natural biomass or poorer nations is being stolen and those life forms being patented by foreign nations and corporations, with collusion and help from the very elite of those nations. How the Indian elite is knowingly or unknowingly being used as pawns to hand over their national resources to foreign corporations and governments. The extent of this mechanism created for international long term exploitation is both mind boggling, and depressing.

 That is life, and that is what has been covered so far with the interview with Mr. Devinder Sharma of India. It was interesting to hear Mr. Sharma mention Vavilov of the Soviet Union, a brilliant man that attempted to collect food plant samples from around the world, and identified the Indian subcontinent as one of the hot spots of biodiversity. Stalin eventually got him killed in prison, because Vavilog’s ideas on genetics did not fit the then prevalent Communist ideas, where people’s or plants biological heritage was not supposed to matter, and excellence was solely to be saught from after-birth factors, and that all plants, like all men, were created equal. That, of course, was outside of the scope of this discussion, and was not covered.

You can find the talk listed at the bottom of this page. It can be playing directly by clicking on it. You can also find it in iTunes, if you look for a podcast under the name of Tony Mitra, and go through the list of episodes. It can be identified by the logo at left.

 i hope the readers will like this podcast and will look forward for the rest of it.

Hudson, Quebec sets legal precedence in banning federally approved pesticide at Municipal level

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Hudson is a township sandwiched between the city of Montreal, to the east and the farms and forests to the west, in the province of Quebec, Canada.

And through the last decade of the last millennia on to the first years of this one, she created history of a kind – she withstood several levels of high profile legal challenges, all the way till the supreme court of Canada, on its Municipal level ban of cosmetic and other lawn pesticides.

This became a precedence making event, and the cascading effect was various other provinces ended up enacting bans on cosmetic lawn pesticides at the municipal level as well as initiatives taken at provincial levels to ban harmful pesticides.

A full length documentary video has been produced named “A Chemical Reaction – The story of a true green revolution” whose web description goes as – “

A Chemical Reaction, is a 70 minute feature documentary movie that tells the story of one of the most powerful and effective community initiatives in the history of North America.  It started with one lone voice in 1984.  Dr. June Irwin, a dermatologist, noticed a connection between her patients’ health conditions and their exposure to chemical pesticides and herbicides.  With relentless persistence she brought her concerns to town meetings to warn her fellow citizens that the chemicals they were putting on their lawns posed severe health risks and had unknown side effects on the environment.”

Jennifer Dumoulin

To learn more about the case, and to understand how Canadian law works with regard to Municipalities jurisdiction in banning what it might consider to be harmful to its residents and environment, I tried to call the persons involved. The key person was Ms June Irwin, who as a doctor first noticed the link between ill health and exposure to pesticides in her own patients, and single handedly pushed the issue through the Municipality of Hudson, which eventually, through initiatives and efforts of the then mayor, environmental agent and councillors, ended up in an enforced by-law that banned application of all pesticides in the town without specific permit, and where violators were subject to heavy fines.

June Irwin was not available, as she was on a holiday. So I got the next best person – the current Environmental agent in the town of Hudson – Ms Jennifer Dumoulin, to speak with me on record, for the purpose of creating this audio podcast, as an educational tool for the public and to raise awareness. There appears to be significant level of interest outside of Hudson and Quebec, and even outside of Canada, to learn how Municipalities might address such concerns from its residents, through actions taken initially at the level of Municipal Councils.

The audio podcast is just over 17 minutes long. It can be listened by clicking the player button at the bottom of this blog. Alternately it can also be downloaded and stored for listening at leisure, through iPhone or iPod and similar devices through iTunes store, free of charge. To find this Podcast and other episodes from me, search for Tony Mitra in the search field in iTunes Store and you should find it. The name of this specific Podcast is – Jennifer Dumoulin of Hudson Quebec on pesticide ban.

I hope this Podcast and information will be of value to the discerning listeners. My thanks go to Jennifer Dumoulin for agreeing to speak with me on record, for taking time out to do so, and for being patient with my questions.

Above is a recorded talk with Ms. Jennifer Dumoulin of the Municipality of Hudson in 2013.

Below is a link to part of the movie made on June Irwin.

Update on July 2, 2018

This is the story of June Irwin, the lone Canadian pesticide warrior that changed the face of Canadian law regarding rights of Municipalities with regard to controlling pesticides in residential areas.

June Irwin was a dermatologist that single handedly changed Canada, and strengthened the hand or ordinary citizens in protecting their neighbourhood from toxic chemical attack by pesticide peddling corporations.

Born in 1935, June was a doctor, a dermatologist, living in the town of Hudson, Quebec, Canada, back in the 1980s and 1990s. She noticed children coming to see her with rashes on their skin, that apparently developed after they played in the grass lawns outside their homes and in public spaces such as in schools and playgrounds.

After checking on the causes and noting the timing of herbicide spray (cosmetic pesticides application in residential areas) and almost synchronous ailments in children’s and pets skin problems, she came to the conclusion that lawn and other cosmetic pesticides were bad for human and animal health.

She contacted the town Municipality, and appealed that these pesticides be banned from residential and public areas. The Municipality declined to act, on the grounds that the pesticides and their application were federally approved and the issue is outside the jurisdiction of town Municipalities.

June disagreed. Undeterred, she appealed first to her clients, the parents of children and owners of pets that were getting sick while playing on the grass. Then she went door to door to meet everybody else.

June had a pleasant and helpful demeanour and was very well regarded in her town. She slowly started gathering the townspeople behind her on this issue.

In two years, the call to ban lawn and other cosmetic pesticides from the town became a political force that the Municipal councillors could no longer ignore. They were literally going to be kicked out of their office and replaced by a new breed, unless they worked to ban these pesticides and make the town safe for children to play in the grass.

The town of Hudson passed a law, banning use of cosmetic pesticides.

Hudson got promptly sued by the spraying companies, supported by the pesticide promoters, in the provincial Court, on the grounds that the Municipality had neither the scientific proof of harm nor the legal jurisdiction, to ban these chemicals.

The town fought the case and won the battle on two provisions of the law:
1) Even if a product or practice is approved federally, it may be restricted locally if it is deemed unsafe for the people.
2) A town did not need to provide absolute and irrefutable proof that a chemical is directly responsible for diseases. A town may have a reasonable suspicion of harm, for passing laws to protect its citizens from the suspected harm.

The chemical lobby did not give up, and sued the town in the Canadian Supreme Court. By then, the province of Quebec had risen to support its small but valiant little town of Hudson, championed by this courageous little lady. So the province of Quebec passed a province wide law banning the use of cosmetic lawn pesticides, and promptly inserted itself into the Supreme Court case, as co-defendant alongside the little town of Hudson.

A few years down the line, the town of Hudson and the province of Quebec won the Supreme Court case. Neither the town, nor the province, needed to produce irrefutable proof of harm. All they needed was a reasonable suspicion of harm, in order to ban these pesticides.

This provided the legal basis, the jurisprudence, for the rest of Canada to follow. Town after town passed these laws, and were never to be legally challenged again.

Today, in my own hometown of Delta, BC, Canada, lawn and residential area weeds may not be killed by any pesticides. The town corporation uses mechanical means and labour to control roadside weeds. Pesticides and herbicides are not only banned in residential and public spaces, but they cannot even be sold in local stores.

The only area the towns are yet unable or unwilling to push back at herbicides, is its use in agriculture, prairie, forests and marshes.

June Irwin showed the path and proved that just a single frail lady is all it takes to change your neighbourhood and the world.

I spoke with June Irwin time to time from some ten years ago, to learn more of her work in Hudson and to catch up on the story. About three years ago I learned she was unwell and might be battling cancer.

She passed away last year at age 83.

Margaret Meade was spot on when she said:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

I love you, June. I shall never forget you.

Relevant Links:

Dr. Bhargava – A talk with a top Indian biologist.

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Early in the morning, my phone gave a tinkle. It was a reminder based on a calendar event I had created, to call Dr. Bhargava early my morning when it was late evening in Hyderabad  India, where he stayed.

Dr. Pushpa Bhargava

Dr Pushpa M. Bhargava is a well known man. He is founder and former director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India; former vice chair, National Knowledge Commission, Govt of India; former member, National Security Advisory Board; Nominee of the Supreme Court of India on the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee of the Govt of India.

Some of the relevant points discussed were:

  1. Bt. Cotton : This has proven to be bad for India. There is mounting evidence of link between rising farmer suicide and Bt. Cotton. Dr. Bhargava states that he has checked his records going back several decades and in fact has the necessary documents to show the increase in farmer suicide in the Cotton farming belt started in large scale since introduction of Bt. Cotton. He further claims that the Bt. gene is a dangerous item and needs to be banned altogether. He feels optimistic that this will happen in India. However, he believes banning of Bt. Cotton will not come from the Government itself, which is focussed on promoting interest of western corporations. The change will come from public pressure, and the significant role being played by the Indian CIvil Society. This may even turn out to be an election issue next year. Dr. Bhargava further stated that the Govt. of Philippines had invited Dr. Bhargava for his views on some of the Bt. Crops such as Bt. Brinjal and had more or less followed his recommendation in rejecting it in their country.
  2. Roundup Ready crop : According to Dr. Bhargava, this is an even bigger disaster than the Bt. Cottons. But thankfully, it is not introduced in India at all, except in small experiments and field trials. Unfortunately, the Agricultural Minister of India is pushing all he can to promote Western Patented and clearly detrimental technology of GM crop for questionable scientific or ethical reasons. Nonetheless, Roundup Ready crops are a long distance away from large scale introduction in India.
  3. Bt. Brinjal : There was a major groundswell of opposition against Bt. Brinjal in India a few years ago, that prompted the then minister of environment Mr. Jairam Ramesh to investigate the pros and cons issue of the Bt. crop and put a moratorium on it, essentially banning it from India for the foreseeable future. This happened in spite of the money poured into media campaign by corporations and the support the GM crop got from most of the Government and business class. This was perhaps the first major setback for GM crop globally, and set the stage for the rest of the issues.
  4. Supreme Court Case : There is a ground breaking case unfolding in the Indian Supreme Court where top Indian scientific expert committee has advised the Court in a case against the Govt of India, about the harmful effects of GM technology. It is possible that the Supreme Court might force the hand of Govt of India in banning most of the GM crops for now.
  5. Biopiracy : There is another interesting case ongoing in a High Court, initiated by civil society individuals against the Govt of India, providing evidence that Monsanto and its partner have violated the National Biological Diversity Act (2002) by using a variety of Indian eggplant (brinjal) without obtaining the permission of Government of India for such use as required according to Indian laws to produce GM brinjal. This is in essence an act of Biopiracy. The court has seen the evidence and has agreed that the Indian law has been violated and instructed Govt of India to sue Monsanto and its partner, which the Govt is now proceeding to do, but trying to find ways to scuttle the case as far as possible.
  6. Illegal introduction of GM crop : India does not have a good laboratory that can quickly check if a crop is GM or not. Taking advantage of that, a lot of GM crops have sneaked into the Indian food chain, such as imported snacks based on GM corn, GM soya etc. This is as such illegal, but the mechanism is not in place to check it and the law regarding safeguards are not properly implemented. There is a lack of awareness on these issues.
  7. Govt Policy on GM: Unfortunately, it is now a well known fact that Indian policy is being tuned to support American interests and to solve America’s problems rather than India’s own national interest. This is so well known that even Indian politicians accept it unofficially. This too is likely to be an election issue next year. Globalization has allowed an unprecedented level of influence by foreign corporations on national policy making of many countries.
  8. Indian Civil Society: It is also an emerging fact that, in spite of corruption, illiteracy and poverty that ravages India, the Indian Civil Society is likely doing a ground breaking job and achieving better success than almost anywhere else, in fighting the menace of GM crop issue.
  9. Golden Rice: The whole issue of Golden rice is a kind of hoax. It is touted as a solution to vitamin-A deficiency in the third world. It is patented technology, but the patent holder states it is not going to claim intellectual rights on it for now. Calculations show that a man might have to eat 15 Kg of this rice every day to get his normal daily needs of Vitamin-A. This is absurd. This means Vitamin-A has to be taken in primarily from other supplementary food and not from rice, either GM or organic. The aim may be for Golden rice to push out and make extinct all other major strains of rice. Once the competition is gone, then the patent holder begins to increase price of seed and demand intelectual rights to the seed.
  10. Science Research off base : Indian Govt has been, unfortunately, tuning its science research institutions to solve American problems and not Indian problems.
  11. Food supply : The main idea of the GM seed business plan is to control the world food supply – the biggest business in the world. It is not designed to solve either hunger or poverty. It is designed to establish a stranglehold and a monopoly on the world food supply.

The conversation was recorded and is given below in the Podcast. Click on the triangular play button. You may also find it in iTunes.

Dr. Bhargava has seen the above text and approves it. He can be contacted at : bhargava.pm@gmail.com

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