Activist Vandana Shiva and an Europe-based NGO have jointly opposed a patent awarded to an American company on virus resistance traits taken from indigenous melon varieties in India. The NGOs — Navdanya and No Patent on Seeds — contend that, armed with this patent, the U.S. company (Monsanto) could block Access to all breeding material inheriting the virus resistance derived from the Indian melon. Seeking complete revocation of the patent the NGOs,...

It is difficult to explain to Indians the wrongness of collective punishment. This is because our identity is collective, and so is our behaviour This month is the 10th anniversary of the incident at Godhra and the events in Gujarat that followed. When the violence began, it was said that the media had made the violence worse. Often this was by its innocence and sometimes by its malice. Was this true? The...

—PTI Less than a week after a similar move by micro-blogging site Twitter, Internet major Google has unveiled plans to make content on its blogger platform selectively available, depending on the local rules of each country. Google is the latest entity to come out with the option to restrict online content amid a raging debate over moves by many countries, including India, to enforce regulations on the internet. Google, which launched its blogging...

-The Times of India   The SC order said quite clearly that then telecom minister A Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer" and lists seven steps he took to ensure this happened. Here are the steps as the SC saw them:  1. After taking over as telecom minister, Raja directed that all applications received for UAS licences should be kept pending till receipt of the Trai's...

-The Hindustan Times By cancelling licences issued by the UPA government to telecommunications companies in 2008, the Supreme Court has ruled against discretion in the allotment of natural resources like radio frequencies. This is in contrast to the view of this government and that of its predecessor, the NDA, that big upfront costs like spectrum fees, which must be passed on to customers, don’t serve the larger goal of universal telecom...