-The Economic Times A growing number of countries are adopting India's intellectual property regulations, which give enough flexibility to local companies to produce generic versions of popular drugs to safeguard public health. Although multinational companies have criticised India for being lax in enforcing intellectual property (IP) laws, countries such as China, Argentina and the Philippines are adopting similar provisions. Last month, China amended its IP laws, allowing local companies to produce low-cost versions...

-The New York Times India's coalition government just celebrated the third anniversary of its tenure with a self-congratulatory banquet that could not have been more poorly timed: India's currency, the rupee, is falling; investment is down; inflation is rising; and deficits are eating away at government coffers. While short-term growth has slowed but not ground to a halt, India's problems have dampened hopes that it, along with China and other non-Western economies,...

Empower school principals to truly deliver education to India The Right to Education (RTE) law, and the subsequent Supreme Court judgment, has focused attention on the future of school education in India. The judgment on the provision that requires private schools to offer 25 per cent of their seats to economically weaker sections opens new opportunities for the poor, and that is welcome. But in our fiercely hierarchical society, class-conscious...

-CNN-IBN On May 13, 2012, the Indian Parliament completed 60 years since its first sitting. To mark the occasion, a special sitting of both Houses was organised on the day. Recently, there has been much public scrutiny of the work of MPs and the functioning of Parliament. This document presents some information on the changing profile of MPs and the trends in the working of Parliament over the past 60 years. Fewer under-matriculates,...

Going by just the number of countries, the global average for the age of consent is 16. The government's proposal of criminalizing consensual sex with any person below 18 will put India in the company of countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, Chile, Peru and Egypt, none of whom can be counted among liberal democracies. While the age of consent across the world ranges from 13 to 18, the bulk of the...