-The Hindu The Modi government must stop engaging U.S. bureaucrats as patent consultants and instead showcase the Indian patent statute as an exemplar for a balanced regime Earlier this month, the media reported that India “privately” assured the United States that it will not issue any more compulsory licenses. This report was reminiscent of a theory propounded by psychologist Lenore E. Walker in 1979 on abusive patterns in relationships. Four stages of abuse Walker...

-Livemint.com The latest round of NFHS-4 shows than even in wealthy states such as Tamil Nadu, about four out of every 10 married women experienced some form of spousal violence Mumbai: A week ago, minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi said that India cannot have a law to criminalise marital rape, citing various factors such as “level of education/illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of...

-Outlook The structural basis is being laid out for future authoritarianism at the behest of foreign biometric and surveillance technology What distinguishes Barack Obama and David Cameron from Narendra Modi? Obama and Cameron oppose biometric identification but Modi supports it. On 11 May 2005 in the US, the Real ID Act for a national ID was rushed through US Congress and the US Senate with utmost urgency, a legacy of George Bush...

-Kafila.org The last few months have seen an unusual public engagement around questions of secularism, freedom of speech, sedition and the like, with furious debates everywhere from our campuses, streets and TV studios to the floor of Parliament. The budget session has been enlivened by scenes of high drama, with the leading lights of the Treasury benches bringing colour, sound and fury to their tutorials on patriotism and nationalism. While these high-decibel...

-People’s Democracy In the last week of February, a panel set up by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body ruled against India on a complaint by the US in early 2013 that India’s Domestic Content Requirement (DCR) for some solar power projects violated WTO prohibitions on measures that result in “less favourable treatment” of international trade partners. The panel was ruling on an appeal by India in response to the original injunction...