NAGPUR: Fourteen years after US multinational Monsanto brought the genetically modified (GM) Bt Cotton (Bollgard) to India, there is no clarity on the discovery having ever been patented in the country. Clueless Indian farmers and seed manufacturers have paid crores as royalty to the company from 2002 until 2006, when the company came out with Bollgard 2, which was, incidentally, patented. Two arms of the central government differ on the patent issue. The Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR), in an RTI reply to farm activist Vijay Jawandhia, emphatically stated that Monsanto's 'cry1ac Mon 531' gene was never patented in India. However, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF)...
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