-ThePrint.in While the US exemplifies the effect of discriminatory enforcement in an unequal society, a weak state and low conviction rates in India are complicit in the failure to stem the violence against marginalised groups. It is virtually an axiom in development circles to say that the rule of law is necessary for a country’s economic development and advancing accountability and justice. Proponents of the former emphasise the importance of rule of...

-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...

-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 Hindu India must counter Japan’s U.S.-style pressure at the RCEP talks and ensure affordable generic medicines Leaked texts are like leaked gases — you may never find the one responsible for it, but the mayhem caused by its release is hard to contain. Unsurprisingly, all public discussions on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are centred around leaked documents. As India negotiates the RCEP — a free trade agreement that looks...

-TheWire.in The negotiator’s comments were non-committal but indicated that for now, the RCEP talks have not yet moved decisively into a TRIP-plus scenario. The chief negotiator for New Zealand, at the Asia trade pact talks in Hyderabad this week, made pointed reference to TRIPS-plus (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) provisions, saying that while the TRIPS agreement on Intellectual Property Rights was sufficient, it was up to the countries to analyse whether...