-The Telegraph New Delhi: The US Chamber of Commerce has advised its government to ratchet up pressure on India over Intellectual Property rights and prevent it from producing cheap generic versions of medicines under patent protection. In a recommendation to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the chamber requested it to label India as a Priority Foreign Country, a tag which is given to the worst offenders of patent rights. The only...

-Kafila.org The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill was meant to be an enactment to codify India's obligations under the UNCRPD, which it ratified without reservations. There was a Committee set up in 2009 by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, headed by Smt. Sudha Kaul, to draft a Bill to this effect. Like the UNCRPD says, the Committee included different people with disabilities - across disabilities - to draft...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Right to Information mechanism is sought to be diluted by certain bodies by the arbitrary use of pre-existing procedures and rules which were enacted at a time when citizens' right to information had little or no consequence. These rules also lack procedural safeguards and have onerous fees devoid of any reasonableness. The aggrieved citizen had no choice but to approach the courts. This trend must be...

-The Business Standard A quick recap of the intensely fractured debate on GM crops and what the pro & anti arguments are. After nearly a decade of opposition, Environment Minister Veerappa Moily is finally expected to rule in favour of the contentious GM or genetically modified food crops in India. The Economic Times reports that this will "pave the way for the government to submit an affidavit in the Supreme Court agreeing...

-The Hindu     To be able to deliver appropriate legal services to the rural and tribal communities, we need an alternative delivery system with a different model of legal service providers Delivery of legal services to the rich and the corporate class is organised not through individual lawyers but through a series of networked law firms. These firms employ hundreds of lawyers and domain experts all over the country to provide highly specialised...