-The Hindu As the U.S. loses interest in multilateralism in trade, India should actively try to arrest the organisation’s slide Less than 25 years after the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created, its future as a body overseeing multilateral trade rules is in doubt. The failure of the recent ministerial meeting at Buenos Aires is only symptomatic of a decline in its importance. Too ambitious? When the WTO was born in 1995, replacing the...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: From growing divorce cases of parents to dysfunctional families to a changing atmosphere in schools and colleges, children aged below 18 in India are increasingly finding it difficult to cope with situations and are straying, reveals an analysis of the latest crime statistics. Raising questions on the belief that children without parents and those living on the streets are more prone to committing crimes, data from the...

-The Economic Times Max Super Specialty, Patparganj has made “unfair” and “excessive” profits on the sale of disposable syringes to patients admitted in its hospital, an investigation by the Competition Commission of India has revealed. The commission is expected to hold a hearing on this issue on December 20. CCI in 2015 ordered a probe into allegations that the hospital had colluded with multinational syringe maker Becton Dickinson’s Indian arm to sell...

-Livemint.com The regulatory system for the seed and biotech industry should be transparent, science-based, predictable and fair For many decades, the Indian policy framework facilitated the interaction of science and innovation with entrepreneurship, which led to competition and the subsequent development of an industry structure that delivered sustainable economic benefits. The government was a major contributor to investments in seed research in India for close to three decades after independence. Policy reforms like...

-The Indian Express Onion farmers have suffered even in a bumper crop year. Needed: Scientific storage facilities, a judicious trade policy. Onions are, once again, in the news. Last week, retail prices touched Rs 50/kg in several markets, and wholesale prices touched Rs 30/kg in major onion markets like Lasalgaon in Maharashtra. This is not the first time that onion prices have spiked. Almost every alternate year, this roller-coaster of boom and...