-The Hindu India’s IPR regime, never in the background, has come under sharp focus recently for a variety of reasons. It is ten years since India amended the Indian Patents Act, 1970 to bring its laws in line with the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The most important of those amendments related to the introduction of product patents for 20 years, including for pharmaceutical products. Significant safeguards were...

-Hindustan Times India is the only country that still creates textiles coming from the genius of its master weavers. The world has lost the hand-weaving and loom process, along with all natural and organic processes of creating textiles. Mill-made fabrics and synthetics largely dominate fashion markets, with China as the main example. India’s handloom industry is not the basket case it is made out to be. Its market for both saris and...

-The Telegraph Standard model: The state provides a poor woman employment for 58 days a year, under the 100-day job guarantee scheme, at (Bengal's) daily wage rate of Rs 169. Cost: about Rs 20,000 over two years. Alternative: The state provides her an asset - maybe a small grocery - teaches her to run it and monitors her progress while giving a daily stipend for her consumption needs and ensuring basic healthcare...

-The Hindu A promising area of change for the better In the last article, we considered the climate impact of India’s love for milk (short summary: not good). This time we will consider another aspect of our food: how we cook it. Most readers of this newspaper will perhaps not have more than the slightest acquaintance with wood-fired stoves. Most of us are still wondering whether or not to voluntarily give up...

-DNA India Constant decrease in investment on research and development blamed for carelessly conceived schemes A fishing project in the deserts of Rajasthan, cold storage facilities for bananas in Maharashtra's no-banana Pune district, milk coolers in Gujarat's Sagbara region where there is no milk production and no electricity either… Those are just some of the examples of carelessly conceived government schemes to bolster farm growth at a time share of the...