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"Let knowledge
not blow me off my feet!" _Uma
Shankari
India and the USA often pride
themselves as “two biggest democracies”. But ours is a strange democracy in
operation- even if the civil society is not barred from speaking, there is
hardly any recognition of its wisdom. The powers that be are too arrogant to
take constructive criticism. We have witnessed it in the case of Enron. Are we
doing an Enron here? How do we ensure that voices of warning are at least heard
in the high places? We need to consider the follow-up to this workshop as
seriously as the workshop itself.
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Transgenics in Indian Agriculture: Experiences so far and implications of KIA
proposals on Indian Farmers- Dr. G V Ramanjaneyulu
Post Green Revolution, transgenic
crops (or Genetically Modified crops) have become the key driving force for the
modern agriculture. Since ages humans are manipulating nature to suit their
needs and agriculture has developed in the process. But the current situation is
unprecedented and unique because never before have the tools been available to
redesign nature at such a large scale and with the speed that the new
agricultural biotechnologies permit.
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Mounting Suicides and National Policy for Farmers -Bhaskar
Save
This country has
more than 150 agricultural universities, many with huge land-holdings of
thousands of acres. They have no dearth of infrastructure, equipment, staff,
money, … And yet, not one of these heavily subsidized universities makes any
profit, or grows any significant amount of food, if only to feed its own staff
and students. But every year, each churns out several hundred ‘educated’
unemployables, trained only in misguiding farmers and spreading ecological
degradation.
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The Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture – an
overview - Kavitha Kuruganti
Few would disagree
that today, Indian farmers are facing a serious crisis and Indian agriculture is
at critical cross-roads. The present situation has been variously described as
‘the economics of farming is…unviable’ and as ‘the greatest agrarian crisis
since the times of the Green Revolution’. There have been calls for a second
green revolution and an ever-green revolution in this context. Issues like
technology fatigue and ecological disaster are now part of the policy-making
parlance. Productivity improvements are being called upon as a response to the
crisis and rehabilitation packages being announced in areas where suicides have
been reported on a large scale.
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Innovative Indo-US Collaborations – Missed Opportunities -
Dr. C. Shambu Prasad
It is a paradox
of Indian development that while it boasts of one of the largest scientific
manpower in the world, studies on science are indeed far and few between. The
rich and growing practice of the science technology and society studies (STS or
science studies) approach has not reflected sufficiently in debates on science
and technology in India. To put it simply the approach of science studies is not
anti-science and does not debate the importance of science and technology for
development.
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Vadde
Sobhanadreeswararao |
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Indo US knowledge initiative - Implications on Indian
farming sector
- Vadde Sobhanadreshwararao
In March 2006,
during the USA President’s visit to India, Workplan for Indo-US Knowledge
Initiative was emerged. Even before that, on 13-14th February itself, this work
plan was approved during the meeting of Indo-US Knowledge initiative Board from
India side, this board Mr. M.S. Swaminathan as Hon‘ble advisor and Dr.
Mangalarai as Co-Chairman, similarly on the US’ side, Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman
Borlag as Hon‘ble Advisor, and from private sector are Monsanto, Walmart and
Archer Danielle Mioland companies each have one representative as members. For
three year time period while KIA is on place, the Indian Government will spend
Rs.350 crores while there is no such budget demanded for the same purpose from
US‘s side. As part of the agreement, US Agricultural Universities will offer
accommodation to the Indian Scientists.
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