-Economic and Political Weekly The National Democratic Alliance government has constituted the IPR Think Tank which, among other things, is to draft the National Intellectual Property Rights Policy. India may not have a policy per se but it has a strong legislation on IPRs, a functioning patents office and mechanisms to grant patents as well as protect consumer interests. The Think Tank has other issues it needs to address, but is...

-The Hindu They have neither sought review of CIC ruling nor challenged it in court Seventeen months after the Central Information Commission ruled that the Right to Information Act applied to six national political parties, none of them has complied with the Act or appealed against it. A full Bench of the commission, comprising Information Commissioners Vijai Sharma, Sharat Sabharwal and Manjula Prasher, had posted a hearing on the parties' non-compliance with its...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: If you are economically well off, you may soon have to pay full market price for your cooking gas refills. "The next important decision India will have to take is whether people like me ... (are) entitled to get our LPG (liquefied cooking gas) subsidy," finance minister Arun Jaitley said here on Friday. "I think the sooner we are able to take these decisions as to who...

-The Hindu Over 95 per cent of patients coming to super-speciality hospitals are at the wrong place and have incurred hardships when they could have been treated at their neighbourhood primary care centre. A number of announcements have been made by the Central and State governments on their intent to offer Universal Health Care (UHC). These welcome developments are timely as India is now rapidly becoming one of the few countries that...

-The Hindu Business Line   The Open Government Data initiative is gaining ground, but it needs to be in step with the Central Information Commission Open government data (OGD) is fashionable. Governments and public institutions in Europe and other parts of the globe are making increasing numbers of datasets available to the public by means of national, regional, local or thematic portals, in keeping with their political commitments towards open government and open...