-TheWire.in The withdrawn Bill had, controversially, sought to provide the government with powers to exempt its probe agencies from the provisions of the Act. New Delhi: The government on Wednesday withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill from the Lok Sabha and said it would come out with a “set of new legislation” that will fit into a ‘comprehensive legal framework’. IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said this while moving for withdrawal of the Bill...

-Press release by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) dated 18 May 2022 Geneva, 18 May 2022 (WMO): Four key climate change indicators – greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification – set new records in 2021. This is yet another clear sign that human activities are causing planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean, and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for sustainable development and...

-TheWire.in * The proposed Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill 2021 encourages a conducive environment for investments and to simplify the patent application process. * Farmers in India have historically been against any kind of IP rights – whether patents or plant variety protection over seed and planting materials. * In a confused mix of laws, the government also grants IP rights to BMCs for farmers’ varieties – formed under the Biological Diversity Act –...

-NITI Aayog Working Paper, ISBN: 978-81-953811-7-3 Abstract -  The importance of agriculture in an economy usually declines as it climbs the development ladder. Raising agriculture productivity has been known to be an important precursor. Labour productivity in agriculture can either be increased by higher land productivity or higher land availability per farmer and mechanisation. In India, however, the dramatic increase in land productivity through industrial farming has caused severe environmental damage and...

-Newsclick.in The Bill and the Joint Parliamentary Committee’s recommendations are riddled with many problems, and some of them are giving rise to serious concerns over enabling the State with surveillance power. The much-awaited Joint Parliamentary Committee’s report on the country's first comprehensive data protection law has been tabled in the Parliament. After two years of intense deliberation and consultation, the report was finalised and adopted. The law, if passed, would regulate data...