-Business Standard It is an annual review of the state of IPR protection and Enforcement of America's trading partners Notwithstanding the recent bonhomie of sorts between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama, India's status as ‘Priority Watch List' country for having an alleged weak intellectual property rights (IPR) and patents regime is unlikely to see any improvement in the US' 2015 Special 301 Report. The 2015 Special 301 Report is...

-The Hindu Business Line Article 66A of the Information Technology Act has no place in a free and democratic society If everybody who ever offended anybody - intentionally or otherwise - is to be locked up, then half the country would be behind bars. It is astonishing, therefore, that provisions in the law which mandate precisely such an outcome for offending someone - without, moreover, even defining what exactly is meant by...

The Hindu In the urgency to grant industry its due with promises of ‘Make in India,' the marginalised cannot continue to be victims of grave policy neglect and continuing alienation For some years now, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)has been perceived as a roadblock to development or a facilitator for the industry depending on which side you are on. Former Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan's recent letter to Sonia Gandhi...

-The Hindu The inequities in infrastructure could not be starker. While several schools continue to deny the most basic sanitation facilities for poorer children, a select band of them dangle air-conditioned classrooms and dormitories and other accessories before the more affluent ones. Repeated knuckle-rapping by the Supreme Court over the years has evidently had little effect on State administrations, as the case of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana illustrates. In October...

-The Hindu Business Line The Subramanian panel report on environment regulation should not be accepted in a hurry Environmental governance in India is becoming increasingly contentious. Environmental quality is declining sharply on indicators such as air, water and forest cover. At the same time, there are calls for regulatory flexibility to enable pursuit of a "development agenda". One of the underlying reasons for the failure of environmental regulation has been the adhocism of...