-IndiaSpend.com/ Scroll.in PepsiCo has appealed in the Delhi High Court against the revocation of its registration of a potato variety. An ongoing court case between multinational food and beverage company PepsiCo India and the petitioner, farmers’ rights activist Kavitha Kuruganti, has highlighted the tensions between plant-breeding corporations which want a stricter intellectual property rights regime and farmers’ rights in developing countries. International intellectual property rights conventions seek to give plant variety breeders the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
India seeks new benchmark for farm subsidy at WTO -Banikinkar Pattanayak
-Financial Express The extent of asymmetry between the support extended by the developing and the developed countries was brought to the fore in an earlier paper jointed submitted by India, China and some others. India, along with 80-odd developing countries, has sought a revision of the over three-decade-old external reference prices of farm commodities that are used by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to calculate current domestic farm subsidies extended by developing...
More »WTO talks face deadlock over decision on patent waiver, fisheries subsidies
-PTI/ The Hindu The four-day ministerial conference that started on June 12 was extended by a day to give negotiators more time to iron out differences and strike the deal Talks at the World Trade Organisation conference hit a fresh hurdle late on Thursday with a group of countries blocking a decision on two crucial issues, temporary patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and eliminating harmful subsidies to promote sustainable fishing, sources said. The...
More »NGOs protest Commerce Ministry inaction on WTO COVID-19 vaccine proposal -Jacob Koshy
-The Hindu They write to Prime Minister asking him to renegotiate the draft proposal to waive intellectual property rights on vaccines and highlight the need for active engagement to improve it A group of non governmental organisations has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to prod the Union Commerce Ministry into “proactively engaging” with a draft proposal at the World Trade Organisation-TRIPS in Geneva to waive intellectual property rights, mostly controlled by...
More »Biodiversity Amendments Will Further Isolate India’s Agri, Environment Ministries -Shalini Bhutani
-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 –...
More »