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Mangalore , Aug. 28

DR Vandana Shiva, Founder-Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi, has stressed the need for having only one movement to protect the environment and the rights of people.

"The situation demands strong measures to confront, resist and defeat the anti-people and pro-MNC stand taken by the Government. Various movements led by Dalits, farmers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) should come together to have only one movement to protect the environment and rights of the people," she said.

Dr Shiva was delivering the keynote address at a State-level workshop on `Patent, Seed Bill, Water Policy and Environment Policy,' organised by various NGOs here.

She said that there are attempts to privatise the last vital resources such as seeds and water in the name of the seed bill and the water policy. Terming seeds and water as the basis of human livelihood, she said now steps have been initiated to manage them globally.

Criticising the Seed Act 2004, she said a monopolistic patent regime couldn't be established as long as farmers have the alternative of their own traditional varieties of reliable and high-value seeds. . The aim of the Seed Act is to stop farmers from using their own seeds, she said. While criminalising farmers, who conserve the traditional varieties of seeds, the Act fails to regulate and hold liable the seed industry for seed failure and genetic contamination from genetically modified seeds. The act, which prevents farmers from growing their own seeds, provides no remedy from untested and hazardous seeds by multinational companies, she said.

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