Dozens of countries are taking part in a United Nations-sponsored effort to protect potentially life-saving centuries-old traditional medicines from bio-piracy by learning from India how to halt their misappropriation through international patents granted on non-original innovations. Representatives from more than 35 countries wrapped up a three-day meeting in New Delhi today that discussed emulating India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), a database documenting traditional medicinal treatment, concluding that such a mechanism...

“While the UPA has focused on bettering the lot of the Dalit community, it is dominated by upper caste Hindus, very few of whom are genuinely concerned about the plight of dalits,” the American Embassy said in a cable sent under the name of Ambassador David Mulford on June 22, 2005 ( 35177: confidential), and accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks. ‘Little upward mobility' “This ensures that dalits will continue to be...

The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament. The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power....

Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...

These are figures the Left Front should be wary of as it prepares to defend its citadel of 34 years in West Bengal. An analysis of data on the Muslim community released by the chief economist of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, Abu Saleh Sheriff, reveals that the state's minority has benefited little from development measures. In terms of human development indices, the Muslims have fared very poorly. Of the...