Ministry Of Environment And Forest Introduces Relaxed Norms For Genetically Modified Plants And Organisms.

Why in news?

• Central government has for the first time Issued an order exempting certain types of genome edited crops from the stringent regulations applic able on genetically modified or GM crops thus giving a big boost to their further research and development.
• Gene editing is a way of making specific changes to the DNA of a cell or organism while GMOs, are the result of tweaking the DNA of a living organism.
• In the recent past, many countries have either developed or approved for commercial cultivation of vegetables, fruits, oilseeds and cereals developed through genome editing such as Gamma-aminobutyric acid or GABA tomato, high oleic canola and soybean, non-browning mushroom
• It allows SDN1 and SDN2 genome-edited products to be exempted from being treated as transgenic products (GMOs) and taking them out of the purview of Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee or GEAC.
• SDN1 and SDN2 involve “knocking off” or “overexpressing” certain traits in a genome without any Insertion of gene material from outside.
• SDN stands for Site-directed Nuclease and refers to the practice of cleaving DNA strands to effect the subsequent genome editing.
• SDN3 genome-edited products will be treated as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
• SDN3 involves insertion of foreign genes.