-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government plans to come out with a policy on intellectual property rights (IPR) within a few months, with developed nations such as the US and the EU raising concerns over the country's patent rules. "India does not have an IPR policy. This is the first time we are coming out with a policy. IPR policy issues have been hanging fire for quite a long time," commerce and...

-Al Jazeera More than 100 workers have died of starvation since West Bengal's tea estates have begun shutting down. Jalpaiguri/Alipurduar, India - The picturesque tea gardens carpeting West Bengal's Dooars region are gradually turning into graveyards, as dozens of workers have fallen victim to starvation in recent months. More than 100 tea-garden workers have died of starvation in the past year amid site closures, activists say - but rather than taking action, the...

-The Business Standard Every year, like clockwork, India is caught between the spectre of months of crippling water shortages and drought and months of devastating floods. In 2014, there has been no respite from this annual cycle. But something new and strange is indeed afoot. Each year, the floods are growing in intensity. Each year, the rain events get more variable and more extreme. Each year, economic damages increase -...

-The Indian Express More than four years after the RTE was passed, the state has no handle on the numbers of out-of-school children. The recently released report of the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children, based on a situational analysis of India, opens a Pandora's box on data and methodological issues that plague the estimation of out-of-school children in India. As the report reveals, there is a multiplicity of definitions, sources of data...

-The Hindu Business Line How ‘Protected Cultivation' can help prevent crop damage due to national disasters While the first green revolution managed to make the nation self sufficient the next round of reforms certainly needs to address the problems faced by today's farmers. According to statistics available on Indian Council of Agricultural Research, India reaped a record foodgrain production of 259.32 million tonnes (mt) in 2011-12. However, the output fell to 257.13...