-Economic and Political Weekly The National Democratic Alliance government has constituted the IPR Think Tank which, among other things, is to draft the National Intellectual Property Rights Policy. India may not have a policy per se but it has a strong legislation on IPRs, a functioning patents office and mechanisms to grant patents as well as protect consumer interests. The Think Tank has other issues it needs to address, but is...

-The Indian Express Eight years after the Sachar committee report on the condition of Muslims and creation of a Ministry of Minority Affairs, a post-Sachar evaluation committee, headed by former JNU professor Amitabh Kundu, has concluded that though a start has been made in addressing development deficits of the community, government interventions have not quite matched in scale the large numbers of the marginalised. Poverty levels among Muslims, the committee found, remained...

-Outlook The government today approved Rs 5,200 crore scheme for strengthening power transmission and distribution network in six North-east states. "The Cabinet today approved North Eastern Region Power System Improvement Project (NERPSlP) for Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland for strengthening of the intra state transmission and distribution system," Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters here. The scheme has been approved at an estimated cost of Rs 5,111.33 crore including capacity...

-The Hindu Over 95 per cent of patients coming to super-speciality hospitals are at the wrong place and have incurred hardships when they could have been treated at their neighbourhood primary care centre. A number of announcements have been made by the Central and State governments on their intent to offer Universal Health Care (UHC). These welcome developments are timely as India is now rapidly becoming one of the few countries that...

-The Indian Express Last week, India and the US reached an understanding on working out a "permanent solution" to the issue of public stockholding for food security purposes at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The deal is seen as a breakthrough, ending the impasse that had stalled the implementation of a landmark Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) hammered out at the WTO's ministerial conference in Bali last December. * What is this deal...