UR TV CAST

Concerned that Western corporations may try to take out patents on the food, their aim is not to produce genetically modified rice but to protect one of India’s most treasured natural products from a foreign takeover. Basmati may be beloved of students because it is easy to cook, but to connoisseurs, its long grains and natural scent make it one of the world’s most desired varieties of rice. It is one of the Indian agriculture sector’s prime exports.
Already the country has fought off an attempt by an American company to copyright the name basmati for its own product, a crossing of American rice and Indian basmati. True basmati rice, by contrast, is a natural product still grown by highly traditional methods.The project to prove that basmati rice is quintessentially Indian is a sign of how GM methods are transforming the agricultural industry. Today, traditional farmers are trying to fight off what is being called “gene piracy”.

Everybody knows basmati rice comes from India, but lawyers are warning that there is no way of proving it in a court of law. That is where scientists come in.The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Icar) is hoping to genetically “fingerprint” 72 different varieties of basmati rice that are grown in different regions of India.KS Money, chairman of India’s Agriculture and Allied Products Export Authority, told the Indian Express: “It’s always better to have records of our biodiversity and germplasm so that if someone uses our variety and claims intellectual property rights, we should be able to contest it.”JL Karihaloo, director of the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Research, said: We develop a kind of barcode unique to the variety. Shah said there may have been as many as 80 people on board the overloaded ferry when it sank. The victims were going to a remote coastal town to express their condolences to relatives of three people who died earlier this week in a separate boat incident, Shah said.. Indian scientists are mapping the DNA of one of the country’s basic food products: basmati rice. “Those who died included women and children.” Five people who managed to swim to shore notified authorities, said Mohammed Ali Shah, chairman of the Fisher Folk Forum.

The accident occurred near the remote coastal town of Kharo Chao, about 110 miles southeast of the port city of Karachi, said navy Lt Cmdr. Salman Ali.
“Divers from the Pakistan navy are looking for the bodies, but so far we only know that about 60 people have drowned,” he said. “My son, who was 15 at the time, had never seen me crying before.”Mrs Raunstein, who worked as an assistant in the Prime Minister’s bureau at the time, added: “I adored [Yizhak Rabin], I admired him. I really loved him.”For all the retrospective criticisms of Oslo from left and right, Mr Barnea, at least, is emphatically one of those who thinks that history would have been different had Mr Rabin lived.Wryly, he said: “I went with Rabin to eight Arab capitals with an Israeli passport I can’t do that now.”. At least 60 people on their way to a memorial died today when their overloaded ferry capsized in the Arabian Sea off southern Pakistan, a navy spokesman said.

I want peace but I don’t see it coming.”Na’ama Aloni, 36, a Labour supporter who was at the deadly rally, said the murder changed her life, inspiring her to help found the Generation for Peace organisation and start a liberal, secular kindergarten in the poor Hatikva neighbourhood of south Tel Aviv, which is still flourishing. But Ms Aloni added that it was a “bit na?” to assume that “everything would have been better if he had lived”.Miriam Raunstein, 65, broke into tears as she recalled how she wept watching the news on television 10 years ago. When I hear of the threats to [Ariel] Sharon I am very worried it will happen again.”Mr Topaz added of Mr Rabin: “He was a very good politician with a far-sighted vision. Even if they are doing some things now like pulling out of Gaza, the Palestinians are still not 100 per cent free. I am not saying they are 100 per cent OK but a lot of limitations are placed on them. Daniel Topaz, 58, from Jerusalem, said: “Whenever I come to Tel Aviv I try to come here for one or two minutes to pay my respects.”About the murder, he said: “I feel furious; I feel very angry. And if we are true to ourselves we have to admit that he succeeded.”Making a television film as part of a series of events to commemorate the assassination over the coming days – including a public rally in Rabin Square on 12 November that will be attended by the former US president Bill Clinton – Mr Barnea acknowledged that withdrawal from Gaza by Ariel Sharon’s government represented “progress”.