-Live Mint India should encourage private Bills and strengthen the process of legislative approval for new laws Last week, we argued for two key reforms in Parliament's procedures that would enable members of Parliament (MPs) to be more effective as elected representatives: abolish the anti-defection law and record all votes on Bills and motions. We now discuss some possible changes that can be made to strengthen the process of lawmaking by...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India will seek changes to international copyright regulations so that students and researchers can procure photocopies of expensive books without having to pay royalties, a senior government source said. Come December, he said, the Union human resource development ministry will ask the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) to relax its norms that protect authors' and publishers' commercial rights over their books. The ministry will suggest at the next general...

-The Hindu The Marrakesh draft treaty, which will allow free distribution of books in disabled-friendly formats, is not enough by itself without a wider culture of providing for accessibility in learning Last month, delegates from around the world gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco, to sign a draft treaty of immense value to the visually handicapped and people with diverse difficulties in accessing print. The draft treaty signed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Home to one-fourth of the world's visually-challenged persons, India will play a key role in negotiating a historic international treaty next month that will ensure that the community's access to globally-published material is not stymied by rigid copyright rules. The Extraordinary General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has called a diplomatic conference in June (17th-28 th) 2013 in Marrakesh, Morocco, to conclude the WIPO...

-The Hindu The lawsuit by publishers seeking to stop Delhi University from distributing photocopied course packs goes against the spirit of education for all Late last year, leading publishing houses including Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press brought a copyright action against Delhi University and a tiny photocopy shop licensed by it, seeking to restrain them from supplying educational course packs to students. This lawsuit sent shock waves across the...