More often than not, discussions about India's policy on genetically modified (GM) crops result in the point being made about how slow the entire process of clearances by the Genetic Engineering Approvals Committee (GEAC) is. One of the reasons for this is that the GEAC does not give credit to tests conducted overseas and insists they be carried out all over again; the alternative approach would be to say that if certain tests have already been conducted in similar agro-climatic zones overseas, the GEAC should assume the same results will obtain in India as well. But that not being the case, by the time the GEAC approval is finally obtained, the company interested in the crop may well have lost interest. In other cases, like that of Bt Cotton, even as the GEAC continued to debate the pros and cons of the product, many farmers in Gujarat began using the GM seeds so that the approval process became redundant. The GM lobby in the country cites this as a reason for speeding up the process of genetic clearances, but there are pertinent questions that need to be addressed. As an article in this newspaper has pointed out, there are serious loopholes in the entire process of issuing clearances. Some have been highlighted by the scientist, Pushpa Mitter Bhargava, who the Supreme Court said should attend GEAC meetings. Dr Bhargava has argued, for instance, that there are no independent tests of the toxicity and allergenic reports that are submitted to the GEAC by the companies whose products are being tested. He also questions GEAC data and cites the example of the GEAC website, which finds the same results on the presence of Bt protein in uncooked brinjal for both GM and non-GM varieties. The dissent is not limited toDr Bhargava. A recent UN report is categorical that the inability to "properly test for contamination is troubling and threatens the viability of the international bio-safety mechanism. The rapid expansion of GM crops in the developing world means that such contamination may render the whole system irrelevant". Sadly, no other members of the GEAC have sought to challenge the points that Dr Bhargava and others are making. These are serious issues that need to be addressed squarely, and not buried through silence. While the pro-GM lobby pooh poohs the talk of genetic mutation, as also the view that GM should not be allowed in food crops (especially those in which there is a lot of genetic diversity), it is clear that even basic precautions are not being taken up today. For instance, GM seed suppliers talk of the need to keep a distance of 200 metres between GM and non-GM fields to ensure that there is no gene migration, but no one actually monitors this at the farm level. It is to be hoped that such concerns will be addressed once a national biotech board is put in place, under the country's biotech policy, but what level of confidence can one have that this will in fact happen? It would also make sense to shift clearance process from the environment ministry to either the agriculture or science and technology ministries, which are better equipped.