The Ministry has put out a press release a while ago (on a Sunday afternoon at around 3pm!!) about the presence of Dr Sesikeran as the health expert in the sub-committee that assessed GM mustard dossier submitted by Delhi University.
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=150878
I attach herewith proof of the fact that Dr Sesikeran was missing from GEAC including in the crucial meeting of the sub-committee in which the sub-committee created its report in February 2016, which was submitted to GEAC in its 127th meeting. The sub-committee was constituted in the 126th meeting of GEAC. http://www.moef.gov.in/divisions/csurv/geac/126th%20GEAC%20Meeting.pdf
The minutes of various meetings are here:
http://indiagminfo.org/?attachment_id=1262 (127th meeting)
http://indiagminfo.org/?attachment_id=1260 (128th meeting)
http://www.moef.gov.in/divisions/csurv/geac/129th%20GEA%20Meeting.pdf (129th meeting)
http://www.moef.gov.in/divisions/csurv/geac/130th%20GEA%20Meeting.pdf (130th meeting)
I repeat what we said in our recent report on the matter of this sub-committee and the lack of reliability on its assessment processes. http://indiagminfo.org/?p=1454
Dr B Sesikeran: Former Director of National Institute of Nutrition – a Board Member of ILSI, which is International Life Sciences Institute, which has Bayer, BASF, Monsanto and others as Members. It is important to note that he was a member of the Expert Committee headed by Anupam Verma for the CGMCP project (which developed this GM mustard), advising on what studies to take up for health safety assessment of GM mustard, also then conducted the studies as former Director of NIN, then also gave a green signal as chairperson of RCGM in DBT, and now sits in GEAC as a Member and was included the sub-committee! He however did not attend the 2nd February meeting. From all information available, did not take part in the sub-committee processes.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-gmos-regulator-on-mosanto-funded-institute-s-payroll-2171346 ; http://ilsi.org/about/leadership-support/ ; http://ilsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Members.pdf
The questions to the GEAC are:
– why include someone with (multiple) conflict(s) of interest in the Committee?
– why claim his inclusion in the sub-committee when he is not coming to GEAC or attended sub-committee meetings?