-TheWire.in Pfutsero resident Neingupe Marhu uses his minivan to pick up garbage the local administration has failed to clear. New Delhi: Many may not have heard of picturesque Pfutsero in Nagaland’s Phek district, the highest and the coldest point of the state at 2,133 metres above sea level. But one Pfutsero resident is presenting a small but vital example of how individual effort can help keep civic facilities running even when the state...

-The News Minute Rice Diversity Blocks in Kerala and five other states preserve over 1,000 indigenous varieties of rice that were at risk of being lost. In the Indian subcontinent, the birthplace of paddy, the colours of the crop’s many varieties are as diverse as the land, its people, languages, cultures, costumes, dialects and so on. But most of that variety was lost, when farmers were asked to forgo indigenous varieties...

-Down to Earth A high level UN panel on Access to Medicines wants members to make full use of TRIPs flexibilities to protect public health If ever India needed a clear endorsement of its laws on intellectual property rights (IPRs) and their application in meeting public health priorities, it has come from the highest quarters. The report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel (HLP) on Access to Medicines has, directly...

-The Hindu While Monsanto and Indian seed companies spar, more worrying is the confused lawmaking underpinning regulation of patents Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) breed controversy like no other. Little wonder then that Monsanto’s much-maligned Bt cotton has spawned the mother of all intellectual property (IP) disputes in India, involving at least 15 different proceedings in various courts, government agencies and tribunals at last count. Most proceedings appear to have come at the behest...

-The Hindu The Delhi High Court has restored to copyright jurisprudence a clear mandate for the future — one which recognises that the end goal of technology is the improvement of our lives In its much awaited judgment in the Delhi University photocopying case (The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford v. Rameshwari Photocopy Services), the Delhi High Court has dismissed the copyright infringement petition initiated in August 2012...