-The Hindu The Attorney General’s argument questioning the right of Indians to privacy is wrong on two counts. But worse, it goes against the interests of the people on every count. The last ten days have spelt dark times for the right to privacy. On one hand, the DNA Profiling Bill, which may result in a database of sensitive personal data with little to prevent its misuse, is being tabled in Parliament....

-The Hindu The Attorney General’s contention in the Supreme Court that privacy is not a fundamental right is disquieting in the context of the ongoing debate over the implications of the collection of biometric data from citizens. It is true that the AG was only replying to the question whether making people part with personal data was not an intrusion into their privacy, and saying that there is a need to...

-Scroll.in A bill proposes creation of a national DNA data bank, without requisite safeguards for privacy, and opens the information to everything from civic disputes to compilation of statistics. On Wednesday, the Narendra Modi government told the Supreme Court that India's citizen's have no fundamental right to privacy. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi referred to a 1950 court verdict which held that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right while defending...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Abortions among teenage girls below the age of 15 in Mumbai have recorded an alarming 67% spike in 2014-15. Civic data accessed through an RTI further shows that out of nearly 31,000 women who opted for medical termination of pregnancy, 1,600 were below the age of 19. Health experts have called the trend of unwanted pregnancies alarming, while harping on the need for better sex education in...

-Economic and Political Weekly Ten years on, the progressive provisions of the amended Indian Patents Act are being watered down. Ten years have passed since the Indian Patents Act, 1970 was amended in 2005 to bring the country’s laws in line with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The most important of the 2005 amendments was the introduction of product patents for 20 years, including for pharmaceutical products,...