With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...
More »SEARCH RESULT
On Covid patents waiver, health cannot be held hostage to profit -Rajshree Chandra
-The Indian Express Innovation in vaccine production can have an impact only if it is accessible to all. Patents and access to life-saving drugs has always been an emotive and contentious issue. The right to healthy life is a moral minimum, and to find a rational basis to deny it is deeply offensive to the idea of life itself. At the same time, pharma corporations and institutions claim patents are a just...
More »Why Covid is a reality check for Modi’s flagship welfare schemes -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express While 10.35 crore PM-JAY Cards have been issued since the launch of ‘the world’s largest health assurance scheme’ in September 2018, it has proved to be of little use in the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic. The Bharatiya Janata Party won 303 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, more than the 282 it got in 2014. This return to power with a larger majority was significantly enabled by the various...
More »Kerala High Court seeks Centre’s response to invoke compulsory licensing of Covid vaccines -KC Gopakumar
-The Hindu Business Line WTO has allowed countries to issue compulsory licenses during emergencies A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to respond to a plea for invoking the compulsory licensing to allow other capable vaccine manufacturers to produce Covid vaccines. The Bench comprising Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan and Justice M.R.Anitha passed the directive when a public interest litigation in this regard came up for hearing. The petition...
More »A TRIPS waiver is useful but not a magic pill -Prabhash Ranjan
-The Hindu The U.S.-supported move will have an effect if countries simultaneously address non-IP bottlenecks among other things The United States has finally relented and declared its support for a temporary waiver of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement for COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In October 2020, India and South Africa, at the WTO, proposed waiving Sections 1, 4, 5, and 7 of Part II...
More »