Category: Features
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The Unregulated Spread of Bt-3 and Roundup Ready Cotton in India: A Growing Biosafety and Public Health Concern
Tarak Dhurjati India’s cotton story over the last quarter century has been a striking mix of scientific achievement, farmer adoption, regulatory lapses, and environmental concern. From the introduction of Bollgard-I (the first genetically modified Bt cotton) in 2002, to Bollgard-II with stacked insecticidal genes, and now the unregulated proliferation of Bt-3 or “Roundup Ready Flex”…
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Maize and Rice as Alternate Sugar/Starch Sources — Pressure on India’s Sugarcane Economy
Tarak Dhurjati India’s sugarcane economy is at an inflection point. For decades sugarcane has supported millions of farmers and powered a large agro-industrial complex of mills and allied industries. Today, however, rising use of maize and even surplus rice as alternative feedstocks for sweeteners, starch and ethanol — combined with shifting farmer choices and policy…
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Sweet Shift: How Sugarcane’s Half-Century of Change Rewrote India’s Sugar Story
By Tarak Dhurjati · New Delhi · 13 October 2025 Once a crop grown mainly for sweetness, sugarcane has, over the past 50 years, been recast as a strategic provider of sugar, power and fuel. The global industry — led by Brazil — has embraced scale, mechanisation and a bio-energy model. India, the world’s second-largest…
SAMSIDDHA@AI 