There are attempts to attribute everything good with cotton cultivation to GM cotton and on those grounds, bring in other GM crops. Last year, an industry-sponsored study on Bt Cotton farming in India concluded that it is "transforming lives, softly'. The study "revealed' that children in Bt Cotton cultivating households have better levels of immunisation and children from such families have significantly higher enrollment in schools alongwith better maternal health indicators. It also concluded that perceptions on gender equality have improved due to cultivation of Bt Cotton! The report, including the photo of a farmer standing in the hot sun with a laptop, presents a picture that makes you think that the government and developmental agencies should promote Bt Cotton everywhere to reach their Millennium Development Goals (MDG). This year too, we have various people ranging from a chief minister to Planning Commission members to agricultural scientists to economists and industry representatives praising Bt Cotton for all the wonderful things happening to Indian cotton scenario. They are assigning this casualty of increasing cotton production to Bt Cotton as though other factors don't exist. According to them, India needs only a Genetically Modified (GM) miracle whenever productivity has to be increased. If only that were true, we would not have lakhs of farmers committing suicides across the country. Incidentally, there are no crops created with GM technology anywhere which have been engineered for higher productivity. It is time to look at some facts on this front and stop hyping up GM crops because that is exactly the kind of atmosphere the industry would like to build