India’s Minister for Monsanto

A flood of genetically modified crops will soon sweep across India if the Environment Minister gets his way. Minister Moily is meant to protect India’s fields and forests, not mollify Monsanto, and its up to us to ensure he does!

We’ve done it before! Citizens concerned about health and farmers furious about corporate bullying stopped Monsanto’s GM brinjal. But now Moily has convened a committee that could give the green light to 120 types of transgenic crops. Moily has already made many enemies by agreeing destructive forest and coal projects, so if we act now, we can get him sacked.

With elections looming, Rahul Gandhi is under real pressure to show voters strong leadership and ditch this minister for Monsanto. Let’s act fast, before Moily says yes to experimental crops that put us all at risk. Sign now, and share widely, when 50,000 people are on board, we’ll take the message straight to Gandhi:

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Moily, who was given the post of Minister of the Environment in addition to his job as Minister for Oil, has already shown he can’t be trusted to protect the environment because he’s too busy trying to bend over backwards for businesses. In an unprecedented green sellout, he cleared projects worth over 150,000 crore in his first month on the job as part of his push for “creative destruction.” Now he’s under fire for boosting profits at Reliance Industries by hiking gas prices.

Monsanto may be on the back foot in India, but it hasn’t given up. Moily wants to use his position to make sure that GM companies like Monsanto can sink their teeth into India. Some argue that genetic modification holds great promise for increased agricultural efficiency, but so far the gains are just corporate PR hype. The dangers of cross-contamination and higher costs for poor farmers on the other hand are all too real.

Moily wants to move fast, hoping that fields can be planted with genetically modified crops this kharif season. So we need to move even faster. Join the call now and share widely:

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Avaaz members are winning battles worldwide to protect our food supply. After over a million of us took action to halt a Monsanto GM factory in Argentina, the government rejected their environmental impact assessment and halted construction. Now let’s come together to protect India’s farmers.

With hope and determination,

Meredith, Alex, Emilie, David, Mais and the rest of the Avaaz team