New Delhi, June 2 -- Widespread enthusiasm has been witnessed in the media over the unveiling of India's first gene-edited rice varieties - DRR Dhan 100 (Kamala) and Pusa Rice DST1.

These varieties, developed by two laboratories of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), are claimed to be high-yielding, drought- and salinity-tolerant, and to require low doses of fertilisers and water. Additionally, they emit less methane compared to other cultivated rice varieties. It is further claimed that these varieties are non-transgenic, as no foreign DNA was introduced in the application of the CRISPR-Cas genome-editing technique.

However, the Environmental Ministry's exclusion of gene-edited crops from various regulatory checks, whi...