-The Business Standard   Agreement 'endorsed' by members and being legally vetted but will be part of the main Doha agenda only after a tenuous process After the euphoria over an "Indian victory" at the ninth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Bali, Indonesia, not much has moved on the agreed agenda. The 159 members of the WTO managed to adopt the 'Bali package' after last December's meeting, the global trade...

-The Hindu Differences over intellectual property rights (IPRs) have emerged as a strong undercurrent in India's economic relations with the U.S. The attempt by the influential pharmaceutical lobby to stymie India's efforts to ensure the supply of medicines at affordable rates without violating existing treaty commitments, requires a principled response from New Delhi. At the core of the issue is what Columbia University Professor Arvind Panagariya calls "the hijacking of...

-The United Nations As a result of the increased production of genetically modified crops worldwide, the United Nations food agency warns in a ground-breaking survey that an increasing number of incidents of low levels of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are being reported in traded food and feed. "The incidents have led to trade disruptions between countries with shipments of grain, cereal and other crops being blocked by importing countries and destroyed or...

-IPS News PESHAWAR, Pakistan- They are contraband, yet a large number of Pakistanis have come to depend on drugs made in India and smuggled into Pakistan. Patients as well as doctors say these are cheap and effective, even as law enforcers look the other way. The two countries do not have a Trade Agreement on drugs, but markets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north of Pakistan do brisk business in India-made...

-The Business Standard The recent US-India friction over trade is being driven by Big Pharma Apart from the deterioration of the business environment generally, which impacts both domestic and foreign investors, retrospective taxation has figured most prominently in the media as the principal cause of growing scepticism among foreign investors. Entirely missing from the discourse has been an equally potent factor with wholly foreign origins: the hijacking of the economic policy...