**4. Conclusions and perspectives**

Transgenic technology (especially Bt crops) has contributed significantly in increasing the crop production worldwide. The crops are protected from being damaged by insect pests. Certainly, this methodology provides an environmentally safe alternative for the synthetic pesticides. Further, it has also been proven to be useful in enhancing nutritional values of crops, im‐ provement of stress tolerance and production of pharmaceutical proteins. Introduction of Bt cotton varieties in India has tremendously increased the yields of cotton and thereby profits to the farmers. Bt proteins are able to control the damage caused by Lepidopteran and Coleopteran insects, but not effective against sap-sucking Homopteran pests [8, 9]. Therefore, an unusual increase in the population of homopteran pests like whiteflies, aphids and leafhoppers on transgenic cotton has been reported [7]. Further, development of resistance in insects against toxins is also going to be a major point of concern, which might ultimately challenge the future of Bt crops. Some defense-related proteins like plant lectins, PIs and chitinases are reported to be toxic to various homopteran insect pests. However, several safety and societal concerns are raised from time to time. Further, there is non-availability of an effective and safe protein against several important and emerging insects, which need an *ab* *initio* approach to resolve this issue. A promising and biosafe strategy to defeat the above problem can be: (a) exploration of the plant's own defense mechanisms and manipulation of their expressions or (b) by introducing a gene for insect control derived from other plants, especially derived from non-host plants, and (c) pyramiding of insecticidal proteins for the control of multiple insect pests. Exploration of RNAi mediated insect control by targeting high expressing and/or important vital genes can also be an effective approach (12-14, 163, 164). Besides this, in our country, we need a dedicated forum to popularize the use of genetically modified crops and convince the government as well as citizens at ethical issues.
