-The Hindu Business Line Frowns on India’s IP laws; New Delhi unfazed, says laws are TRIPS-compliant New Delhi: Expressing its disappointment with India for not making adequate changes in its IP laws and regulations despite announcing its National IPR policy last year, the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office has once again placed the country in the ‘priority watch’ list in this year’s edition of the Special 301 report. “Almost a year after the...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...

-The Hindu We as citizens are like that... we don’t want to pay taxes, shame on us: Justice Sikri Slamming a tendency in the country to evade taxes, the Supreme Court referred to the mandatory linking of Aadhaar to the Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Income Tax returns as an instance of the government’s efforts to bring “new and new laws to stop leakages.” “When tax evasions are there, the government will try...

-The Economic Times Aadhaar came with a lot of promises. They were brought by some of the brightest in India. Aadhaar promises to remove duplicates and ghosts from government databases, deliver subsidies to beneficiaries, collect taxes, provide financial inclusion and eliminate corruption. Here is why it cannot deliver anything it promises. Aadhaar came with a lot of promises. They were brought by some of the brightest in India. Promise 1: Removing Fraud and Duplicates In...

-The Hindu When will the government operationalise the Lokpal law, even in its diluted form? In a hearing recently regarding non-operationalisation of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, more than three years after the law was enacted, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi reportedly argued in the Supreme Court that the court has no powers to direct the government on when and how the law should be enforced. Failure to implement the Lokpal law by the...