GM Mustard could open door for 100-odd crops in pipeline

Activists, others question yield and bio-safety data; GM mustard can improve yields by 25-30%

After many ifs and buts, the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard seems to have reached a decisive phase after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommended on Thursday that it be allowed.
 
The ministry of environment and forests will now decide on whether this herbicide-tolerant variety can become the first GM food crop to be cultivated in India. Or if it is to meet the same fate as its brinjal counterpart, whose release the ministry had stayed in 2010, on grounds of insufficient safety evidence.
 
The decisive factor in this case would be the Supreme Court's