-Live Mint Dominant caste groups in the state have found their own ways to capture and preserve power Dravidian political parties, which came into existence with the objective of achieving social equality, have been in power for more than four decades in Tamil Nadu, yet caste-based discrimination against the Dalits has remained a fact of life in the southern state. That's in contrast with neighbouring Kerala, which has emerged as a...

-The Business Standard The Novartis verdict by the Supreme Court emphasised the importance of flexibilities in drug patent laws, in contrast to Western countries which are seeking TRIPS-plus hardening through free-trade agreements As curtains on the six-year-long legal tussle with Swiss drug giant Novartis AG finally came down earlier this month, the Indian government did not waste a second in hailing the Indian patent law which it said was in "full...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Supreme Court judgment on the Novartis-Glivec case is remarkable because it has gone beyond the specific technical and legal issues surrounding patents and has put the matter in a much larger political and economic perspective. The deeper implication of the judgment is that it is not only justified to deny patents when incremental innovation is trivial as in the Glivec case. The judgment has linked the...

-The Hindu The lawsuit by publishers seeking to stop Delhi University from distributing photocopied course packs goes against the spirit of education for all Late last year, leading publishing houses including Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press brought a copyright action against Delhi University and a tiny photocopy shop licensed by it, seeking to restrain them from supplying educational course packs to students. This lawsuit sent shock waves across the...

-Live Mint Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's first panchyati raj minister, talks about the challenges the institutions face On Wednesday, India marked 20 years of panchayati raj, an exercise in devolving power to people at the grassroots. Rajya Sabha memberMani Shankar Aiyar was India's first panchyati raj minister, appointed to the newly created ministry in 2004. He headed a committee that examined the reasons why attempts at sharing power with self-governance units haven't...