-The Hindu The policy fails to acknowledge that IP is a market-driven model’ India’s National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy, unveiled on Friday, could pose a “serious” hurdle to allowing access to affordable drugs and the South Asian nation missed a chance to put in place a progressive policy, according to experts. The policy left the country’s patent laws intact and specifically did not open up Section 3(d) of the Patents Act, which...

-The Hindu The new Intellectural Property Policy, unveiled by the Finance Minister is in compliance with TRIPS. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley released India’s National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy recently. The Policy which is in compliance with WTO's (World Trade Organisation) agreement on TRIPS (Trade Related aspects of IPRs), aims to sustain entrepreneurship and boost Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet scheme 'Make in India.' Here are the highlights: >> The Policy aims to...

-The Hindu In the area of intellectual property, public health and access to medicines, the Narendra Modi government should consider its independence to be of the utmost importance. Strong government leadership as well as flexible intellectual property systems are needed in order to effectively combat drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) and HIV and also antimicrobial resistance and non-communicable diseases. This is true not only for India but also countries which rely on affordable generic...

-Kafila.org The last few months have seen an unusual public engagement around questions of secularism, freedom of speech, sedition and the like, with furious debates everywhere from our campuses, streets and TV studios to the floor of Parliament. The budget session has been enlivened by scenes of high drama, with the leading lights of the Treasury benches bringing colour, sound and fury to their tutorials on patriotism and nationalism. While these high-decibel...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: International humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres has filed an application to block US pharmaceutical company Pfizer from obtaining a patent in India for a vaccine against pneumonia and allow Indian vaccine manufacturers to make low-cost versions. The patent opposition moved by MSF has claimed that Pfizer's patent application, which describes methods of conjugating 13 serotypes (strains) of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae into a single carrier vaccine, does not...