Bt Brinjal and Biopiracy

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Context

• The Supreme Court, has ordered the Karnataka High Court to continue hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) on Bt Brinjal biopiracy which it had sent to the National Green Tribunal in 2013.

Biopiracy

• Biopiracy happens when researchers or research organisations take biological resources without official sanction, largely from less affluent countries or marginalised people.When researchers use traditional knowledge without permission, or exploit the cultures they’re drawing from – it’s called biopiracy.
• The term biopiracy was coined in the early 1990s by Pat Mooney, founder of ETC Group– an organization which works to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from socioeconomic and environmental impacts of new technologies – to describe the theft or misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge through the intellectual property system.

Some examples of Biopiracy

• Patenting of Neem
• Biopiracy of Basmati
• Syngenta’s Attempt at Biopiracy of India’s rice diversity
• Monsanto’s Biopiracy of Indian Wheat

Bt Brinjal

• The genetically modified brinjalis a suite of transgenic brinjals (also known as an eggplant or aubergine) created by inserting a crystal protein gene (Cry1Ac) from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the genome of various brinjal cultivars.
• The insertion of the gene, along with other genetic elements such as promoters, terminatorsand an antibiotic resistance marker gene into the brinjal plant is accomplished using Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation.
• The Bt brinjal has been developed to give resistance against lepidopteroninsects, in particular the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer (Leucinodes orbonalis)(FSB) by forming pores in the digestive system.

Read: https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/gm-crops-26

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wildlife-biodiversity/bt-brinjal-biopiracy-case-apex-court-restores-pil-in-karnataka-hc-after-nearly-a-decade-86439