The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
IN AN effort to ensure an agreement on climate technology, India has put forwarded an unofficial discussion proposal that seeks to balance the demands and concerns of both industrialised and developing countries. The proposed mechanism seeks to facilitate rapid adoption of climate technology in a cost effective manner. India has …
The ability of developing and least-developed countries to procure affordable generic medicines continues to be hampered by a lack of transparency in patent information. While there has been an increase in electronic patent information since TRIPS, much more still needs be done.
This paper explores recent episodes in the field of biotechnology research as regards intellectual property rights. It argues that public research institutes develop schizophrenic intellectual property policies. On the one hand, they are aimed at combating poverty through the development of freely accessible knowledge and biotechnologies, but, on the other …
A rarely-used system intended to help poor countries import generic versions of patent-protected drugs was the main focus of discussions at the October session of the TRIPS Council. Developing countries also raised serious concerns over the Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
The rapid deployment and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) is considered crucial for tackling the climate change challenge. In this context, the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the transfer of climate change technologies has been particularly contentious in the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on …
Rajasthan signs agreements with seven biotech companies to restructure agriculture. Read this special report on the fundamental shift in the way farming operates in India by giving private companies access to the state’s research facilities to test and market their hybrid seeds and other technologies. In an unprecedented step, Rajasthan …
Lobbying, as we now know, sets the agenda for practically everything that governs our lives. No policy is ever made without someone seeking to gain from the most innocuous of programmes and projects. Take something as simple as inoculations. Governments cannot even take a decision on inoculating children against some …
IN AN unprecedented step, Rajasthan has entered into memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with seven biotech seed firms, two of them among the largest in the world, to tone up its agriculture. It signals a fundamental shift in the way farming operates in India by giving private companies access to the …
With the growth of private investment in developing-country agriculture, new advances in the biological sciences, and rapid integration of developing countries into the global trading system, intellectual property rights (IPRs) have become an important concern for policymakers, corporate decisionmakers, and many other players in the agricultural sector. But there are …
In the past two decades, the US government has become a bulwark of the movement for intellectual property rights. Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights regime owes much to tough talking US representatives at WTO deliberations. Players in music, film, agriculture and pharmaceutical industry look up to USA to secure their monopolistic …
This Eid, Hyderabad was on a high—a haleem high. Haleem is a great dish, a rich broth of wheat, lentils and meat that the city feasts on during the month of Ramadan, and it hit the headlines because it had just been granted a geographical indication (GI) certificate. Newspapers went …
Regulating access to genetic resources and equitable sharing of commercial benefits of biodiversity are among the most contentious issues under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The tenth Conference of Parties, scheduled October 18-29 in Japan, is expected to evolve an international regime on access and benefit sharing, also called …
This new volume of the CBD Technical Series presents an analysis of the systemic character of global change, biodiversity and human development, and the relationships between them. The report describes and evaluates the complicated relationships and dynamics between human and biological systems. Theoretical concepts, such as complex systems models, are …
This document is developed by GRAIN and the Pesticides Eco-Alternatives Centre (PEAC) to raise Chinese farmers' awareness about the broad historical context of industrial agriculture, and how it paved the way for the introduction of modern varieties of crops and agricultural technologies.
India’s pharmaceuticals industry tends to be in the eye of the storm for one reason or the other. If it is not about its aggressive generics thrust globally, it is about high-profile patent infringement cases at home and abroad. The gamut of laws governing the sector, therefore, are keenly watched …
Refuses To Take On Commitments On Govt Procurements & TRIPS INDIA has finalised a bilateral trade pact with Japan without taking on commitments on opening up government purchases to foreign companies and agreeing to tighter intellectual property regime. The final agreement is scheduled to be signed during Prime Minister Manmohan …
Most of the Yanadi community in Chittoor and Nellore districts are now seeking their livelihoods by getting jobs in other places and are living their life forgetting much about their age old rich traditions and customs. The net result is that traditional knowledge and customary practices that were in practice …
