-Livemint.com Trade minister Nirmala Sitharaman will raise the issue at an informal meeting of WTO trade ministers in Paris on Thursday New Delhi: Hardening its stand on the food security issue, India will insist that countries agree to a permanent solution to the dispute over public stockholding of foodgrains by December as originally promised, even though developing nations have been granted an indefinite interim reprieve. Trade minister Nirmala Sitharaman will raise the...

-Livemint.com WTO director general holds meetings with envoys from 7 major industrialized and developing countries Geneva: India has conveyed to the World Trade Organization (WTO) director general that commitments to reduce trade-distorting farm subsidies must be discussed before pursuing new ideas for reducing import tariffs on agriculture and industrial products for concluding the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) trade negotiations by year-end. Over the last 10 days, WTO director general Roberto Azevêdo has...

-Economic and Political Weekly Ten years on, the progressive provisions of the amended Indian Patents Act are being watered down. Ten years have passed since the Indian Patents Act, 1970 was amended in 2005 to bring the country’s laws in line with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The most important of the 2005 amendments was the introduction of product patents for 20 years, including for pharmaceutical products,...

A recent press release from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that the area affected by recent rains and hailstorms is estimated to be 189.81 lakh hectares (on 24 April 2015), which is nearly double the total area affected that was earlier estimated on 16 April 2015. (See the link below). Experts argue that such extreme weather events may severely damage food economy of the nation, apart from breaking the spirit...

-The Hindu Given the high investment and negative incentives such as input subsidies, small farmers have not benefited from government schemes. Everything about the suicide of the farmer from Dausa, Gajendra Singh, save the tragedy for his family, has been theatre — the very public venue, the occasion of a political rally, the politicians happily playing their populist cards, and the media’s focus on trivialities. The tragedy is being skilfully milked for...