-The Hindu The problem with guardianship in any form, is that it tends to be of a "blanket" form – the denial of all decision-making capabilities. A person with a psychosocial or developmental disability needs her guardian’s permission do a number of things that most people would consider routine: opening a bank account, getting married, managing property, entering into a contract, obtaining insurance, and even making a will. The reason? The enabling...

-Down to Earth Apex trade regulator finds nothing amiss in India's Intellectual Property laws after exhaustive review India's Intellectual Property rights (IPR) regime, under constant attack from the US and multinational companies (MNCs) over the past few years, has been given a clean bill of health by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). At a two-day trade policy review conducted by the apex organisation in early June, there was no criticism of a...

-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...

-The Hindu Business Line Govt wants to keep issues of national importance outside purview of the law New Delhi: Is the Centre diluting the whistleblower protection law by excluding certain issues of national importance from its purview? It appears so, going by the latest Amendment Bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday. A likely effect of the new Bill is that whistleblowers seeking to raise issues of national importance, including those...

-Business Standard Amendments will bar whistleblowers from disclosing info which govt and its agencies are exempted from providing under RTI Act The NDA government has proposed to substantially reduce the kind of information the whistle-blowers will be able to disclose under the Whistleblowers Protection Act, 2011. The government has tabled an amendment bill in the Lok Sabha that reduces the mandate of the law considerably. If the amendment is passed, the whistle-blower would no...