A Division Bench [DB] of Delhi High Court [DHC] on April 11, 2018 invalidated a patent granted to Monsanto Technology LLC for its invention related to the gene sequence responsible for the Bt [Bacillus thuringiensis] trait that eradicate pests afflicting cotton plants. As per the Court, the gene sequence has been held to be a part of the seed, and hence un-patentable in terms of Section 3(j) of the Patents [Amendment] Act, 2005 that excludes higher life forms, like plants, animals, and their parts and essential biological processes from the realm of patentability. The DB has held that Section 3(j) prohibits grant of patents to Bt trait-induced varieties as they are parts of “seed”. The Court has held that the...
More No comments
Blog
Farmers on agitation, despite Modi’s all out help
A ten day nation-wide protest [beginning June 1] by farmers that involves refusal to sell their crop to consumers and block movement to cities would suggest that they are in deep distress. This is completely out of sync with what Modi – government as also the states ruled by BJP are doing to increase farmers’ income and provide them security. In this regard, major steps implemented by it during the last 4 years, may be put under three broad categories viz. (i) enhancing crop output; (ii) ensuring a good/remunerative price; (iii) providing insurance against natural calamities. As regards (i), Modi – government has taken up on a war scale implementation of 99 irrigation projects aimed at reaching water to farmers’...
More No comments
Joblessness – self-employment is the way forward
Modi has failed miserably in delivering on his promise [made in his speeches in the run up to the general elections in 2014] of creating 20 million jobs every year. To demonstrate their point, the critics often point to hundreds of thousands youth submitting applications for a few vacancies of peon or clerk in government departments/ministries. They cite this yawning gap as an indicator of alleged joblessness in the country. The underlying assumption behind this inference is that all those hundreds of thousands youth who applied for the available vacancies do not have any work at hand or any source of income. Such an assumption is fallacious. Had it been so i.e. millions of youth without an income source, there...
More No comments
Fuel worries – the ball is in state court
The steep increase in the prices of petrol and diesel by over Rs 3 per liter each post the assembly elections in Karnataka since May 14, 2018 [currently, these are Rs 78 per liter and Rs 69 per liter respectively in Delhi] has yet again led to build up of unprecedented pressure on Modi – government to reduce the excise duty [ED]. Between November 2014 and January 2016, ED on petrol went up from Rs 9.48 per liter to Rs 21.48 per liter or 2.26 times, whereas on diesel, the increase was even sharper from Rs 3.56 per liter to Rs 17.33 a liter – almost 5 times. That coincided with steep decline in the international price of crude oil...
More No comments
Defaulters queue up to return loans, courtesy IBC
The surge in non-performing assets [NPAs] of banks particularly during the last two years and steep increase in their losses due to higher provisioning requirements [during the last quarter of 2017-18, 25 banks have reported a loss of about Rs 50,000 crore] has been a big negative for the Modi – dispensation as it completes 4 years of its term. True, it is a legacy problem from the previous UPA – dispensation when banks generously gave loans to favored persons [who enjoyed clout with the political establishment and bureaucrats] many a times without conducting due diligence and assessing viability of the projects and there was little or no follow-up on recovery. In fact, the banks went an extra mile giving...
More No comments
Union’s fiscal budget held hostage by NFSA
Recently, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan informed that the Government will not affect any increase in issue prices for food-grains under the National Food Security Act [NFSA] till June, 2018. Under the Act, 5 kg of cereals per person per month is made available at heavily subsidized price of Rs 3 per kg rice, Rs 2 per kg wheat & Rs 1 per kg coarse cereals to 67% of India’s population [75% rural & 50% urban] or over 800 million persons. These prices shall be valid for a period of 3 years from the date of commencement of the Act and, thereafter, may be revised by the Central Government. The NFSA came into...
More No comments
Whose loans Modi has waived? – farmers or businessmen
Rahul Gandhi, President of the grand old national party keeps mentioning in his speech ad infinitum that Modi – government refuses to waive farmers loans even as it has [allegedly] waived loans worth hundreds of thousand crore given to industrialists and big businessmen. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As regards farmers loans, in all the states where elections to the assemblies were held in recent times, BJP had promised and actually went ahead with waiver of their outstanding loans – up to specified limit though. A recent example is Uttar Pradesh where immediately on assumption of office last year, the very first decision Yogi government took was to waive farmers loans. True, the union finance minister, Arun Jaitely...
More No comments
Self-reliance in oil and gas – HELP could be a game-changer
The current steep hike in the international price of crude oil [courtesy, re-imposition of US sanction against Iran and increasing global demand] has once again drawn attention to India’s unconscionably high level of dependence at 83% on import for meeting its energy requirement. This also brings in to focus the commitment of Modi to increase the share of domestic production by 10% in 5 years. Domestic supply – ‘precariously’ low There would have been some consolation if India did not have the resources to support the demand. But, despite the country having abundant resource and seven decades after independence, the domestic production of oil continues to languish at about 15-20% of the requirement. This is entirely due to lack of...
More No comments
Farm subsidies – India needs to rework strategy at WTO
In a hard hitting submission made to the WTO [World Trade Organization] Committee on Agriculture [CoA], the United States has castigated India for indulging in substantial under-reporting of its market price support [MPS] program for wheat and paddy farmers alleging that the sops given by the government far exceed the permissible limit. Under the Agreement on Agriculture [AoA], a developing member country cannot give aggregate measurement support [AMS] – WTO nomenclature for subsidies – in excess of 10% of the value of its agricultural production. The AMS includes ‘product-specific’ subsidies and ‘non-product specific’ viz. subsidies on agricultural inputs viz., fertilizers, seed, irrigation, electricity etc. The ‘product-specific’ subsidy is excess of minimum support price [MSP] paid to farmers over the external...
More No comments
Agriculture credit – small/marginal farmers face double whammy
A committee set up by the Modi – government to identify ways to double farmers’ income by 2022 has in its report [second volume] under caption “Status of Farmers’ Income: Strategies for Accelerated Growth” has stated “landless and marginal farmers depend more on the informal sources for credit for asset creation as compared to the medium and large-size landholders”. The committee goes on to state that “a higher percentage of investment is carried out through informal sources of borrowings such as moneylenders, traders and input dealers by the landless [40.6%], marginal [52.1%] and small farmers [30.8%].” On the other hand, the medium and large farmers avail most of the loans from financial institutions such as scheduled commercial banks [SCBs], state...
More No comments