An Indian government science agency has established a formal mechanism to track patent claims filed in other countries to guard against India’s traditional Knowledge, primarily in medicine, being passed off as innovation. The Global Biopiracy Watch System is a new component of an effort initiated 10 years ago by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to create a giant database of traditional Knowledge contained in the Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha...

Casteism is one of the main causes holding up the country's progress Calling a person by caste name, if used with intent to insult, is an offence under SC/ST Act Society regarding a section of its own countrymen as inferior is simply unacceptable While deprecating the caste system in the country, the Supreme Court has declared illegal ‘khap panchayats' which often decree or encourage honour killings or other institutionalised atrocities against boys and...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday termed Khap panchayats as kangaroo courts and declared them illegal. The Supreme Court ruling said that Khap panchayats are wholly illegal and have to be ruthlessly stamped out. A bench of justices Markandeya Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra said in a judgement that the new trends of kangaroo courts, honour killings, "khap" panchayaths in northern India and "katta" panchayats in Tamil Nadu were barbaric and illegal,...

A lawyer today petitioned the Supreme Court to scrap the government notification on the joint committee for drawing up the Lok Pal Bill, saying the long-pending legislation couldn’t be “handed over to five people for redrafting”. The public interest petition came nine days after the government issued the April 9 notification announcing the panel of five ministers and five activists in a tactical compromise in the face of mushrooming support for...

Union Law and Justice Minister M. Veerappa Moily said on Friday that an overarching law premised on the “right to justice” could soon be a reality. He said the first draft of the Bill was ready though it was still to be circulated for feedback. Mr. Moily's promise of a new law on justice came at a seminar, “Towards Knowledge, development and peace,” organised by the Institute of Objective Studies (IOS)...