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Abstract

Realizing the importance of agriculture to the Indian economy and in accelerat- ing the process of development, a special section of the Current Science1 was re- cently brought out on the application of plant biotechnology in crop improve- ment. The reviewers have made several useful observations explaining the insti- tutional framework and codal proce- dures, review of the progress, indexing the plant breeder’s perceptions on the is- sues to be tackled, advances in the engi- neering of host plant resistance, the awaited improvements in the plant vari- ety act, and positioning India in the context of the ongoing global R&D envi- ronment. In fact, all those who were assigned the job have done an exceed- ingly good job. My attempt here is to do the semantics that is necessary to bring about a national level alliance between the various stakeholders of biotechno- logy and prioritize what is to be done by individual actors to achieve this goal of putting plant biotech business/pro- gramme in India on a strong footing.