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PRESS RELEASES – APRIL 2008
Press
Releases Archive...
CUTS to organise
training programme on IPR and Related WTO
Issues
Jaipur, Rajasthan,
India, April 26, 2008
CUTS, a Jaipur-based non-governmental
think-tank on trade and regulatory issues, is
organising a five-day training programme on
“Intellectual Property Rights and Related
WTO Issues” from 28th April
to 2nd May 2008 at Hotel Golden
Tulip, Jaipur. It is organised in partnership
with the Department of Science and Technology,
Government of India in order to build the
capacity of scientists and technologists
working with various departments, institutes
and research laboratories of the Government of
India such as Department of Scientific and
Industrial Research, Ministry of Micro, Small
and Medium Enterprises, Department of Atomic
Energy, Survey of India, Gas Authority of
India Limited.
Over five days the participants will be
imparted with skills on various aspects of
IPRs and related WTO issues through lectures,
simulation exercises, group discussions, etc.
Resource persons include B. K. Zutshi, Former
Indian Ambassador to the GATT (General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which was the
predecessor of the World Trade Organisation);
Prabuddha Ganguli, Chief Executive Officer of
Vision IPR, Mumbai; Sachin Chaturvedi, Fellow
of Research and Information System for
Non-aligned and Developing Countries (RIS),
New Delhi; Rajeshwari Hariharan of K&S law
firm in New Delhi; and Atul Kaushik, Bipul
Chatterjee and Archana Jatkar of CUTS.
According to Atul Kaushik, Adviser (Projects)
of CUTS, “This training programme intends to
facilitate an overview of the basic principles
of the multilateral trading system and an
understanding of the trade rules that apply to
India’s intellectual property rights regime.
It will be highly relevant and beneficial for
the scientists and technologists and will
prepare them to better exploit the
opportunities that arise from the use of IPRs.”
The programme will cover an overview of the
WTO, an overview of the WTO Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS), enforcement under the TRIPS
Agreement, copyrights and related rights,
implications of IPRs for developing countries,
basic features of the Indian Copyright Act,
the Indian Patent Act, the Indian Plant
Varieties Protection and Farmers’ Rights Act,
a brief overview of other IPR laws in India,
relationship of IPRs with biotechnology,
traditional knowledge and access and benefit
sharing, patent drafting, and negotiations in
the WTO on IPR issues.
For further details please contact,
Rahul Ranjan, +9199283 04252,
rr@cuts.org
and visit
www.cuts-citee.org/pdf/Backgrounder-IPR-WTOIssues-Apr-May08.pdf
FTP Welcome, But Need
To Tighten Regulatory Framework
New Delhi, April 16,
2008
CUTS International, a
leading economic policy research and
advocacy group has welcomed the forward
looking supplement on the Foreign Trade
Policy, 2008, in particular the thrust on
gender empowerment, for the first time since
the policy was adopted some time ago.
“It is a forward
looking strategy which has provided several
incentives for women’s engagement and
empowerment in our export efforts, and will
thus aid poverty reduction efforts of the
government”, said Pradeep S Mehta, CUTS
Secretary General in a press release issued
here today.
The FTP recommends
that the Government will provide incentives
to exporters who recruit more women, provide
better facilities to them and also pay equal
wages. Further, the policy will also offer
incentives to women entrepreneurs.
Sometime ago, in a
study on SEZs done by CUTS International for
the Department of Commerce, it was found
that women were the greater beneficiaries.
The study showed that some units had also
undertaken special education programmes for
women in the communities surrounding the SEZ.
However, Mehta
lamented the fact that much of our exports
are hamstrung by cartels of different nature
and that there is no adequate regulatory
framework or a competition agency to deal
with them.
These cartels do not
operate only in the goods sector, such as
cement, steel and other intermediates, there
are a large number of cartels in the
transport business. These exist at the local
level, where truck unions force companies to
send out goods only through their members
and collect hafta as well. The same
exporting industry also suffer from shipping
liner cartels which carry their goods
overseas. In fact even the goods that they
import for consumption are artificially
priced high due to similar cartels operating
outside.
Turning to the problem
of black marketing and hoarding, Mehta said:
“The government at the centre speaks about
taking strong action, but they can not do
much. It is the states who have to implement
the laws, and their track record is rather
poor”. He added, “unless the central
government rewards better performing states,
the will to crack down on black marketers
will remain merely on paper”.
In conclusion, Mehta
said that the Government has to nationalize
the export movement and counter the cynicism
of people as to why an export-led growth
strategy can lead to more jobs. In this
context, it will be useful to set in motion
the Inter State Trade Council, which was
announced when the FTP was launched four
years ago, but has not happened.
For further
information please contact:
Pradeep S Mehta,
psm@cuts.org,
+9198290 13131
Bipul Chatterji,
bc@cuts.org,
+9198292 85921
India’s duty-free
access offer to LDCs an important and timely
initiative, says CUTS
New Delhi, India, April 09, 2008
The much awaited and politically significant
initiative of providing duty-free market
access to 50 least developed countries (LDCs)
has finally been formally announced by India
yesterday. The Prime Minister of India, Dr.
Manmohan Singh made this important
announcement at the First India-Africa Forum
Summit being held in New Delhi. India will now
unilaterally provide preferential market
access to most exports from all LDCs.
“This is an extremely important and timely
step by India to further promote South-South
cooperation”, says CUTS, a leading Southern
voice on trade and development issues.
Although the decision was delayed by a few
months it seems that this package would create
meaningful access for LDCs in Indian markets.
Earlier the Indian Commerce Ministry insisted
that it needed some more time to work out a
proposal that would be effective in
stimulating LDC exports to India.
That the Indian Prime Minister chose to make
this announcement at the First India-Africa
Forum Summit speaks a lot about its political
significance. The Summit is being attended by
six Presidents and many senior Ministers from
Africa. The timing is also important as the
Doha Round of trade negotiations by the WTO
(World Trade Organisation) Members has entered
into a crucial phase. WTO’s Director-General,
Mr. Pascal Lamy is seriously thinking about
convening a Ministerial meeting next month to
strike a final deal. Support from LDCs will be
crucial for finalizing this deal.
In
about a fortnight the quadrennial UNCTAD
Conference (UNCTAD XII) is to begin at Accra,
the capital of Ghana in Africa, where
attending nations are expected to review the
progress of implementation of GSTP (Global
System of Trade Preferences among developing
countries). This is an UNCTAD-led initiative
for boosting South-South trade cooperation
which urges larger developing countries to
provide unilateral trade preferences to LDCs.
India’s preferential market access scheme to
LDCs would cover 94 percent of India’s total
tariff lines, and is better than what Brazil
and China have offered to LDCs. While China
allows this preference to only 39 LDCs,
Brazil’s scheme is limited to only 32 LDC
members of the WTO. Moreover, contrary to a
general perception that India would provide
zero-duty access to LDCs on just industrial
products and only low-duty on farm products,
duty-free access will be provided for
agricultural products such as sugar, cotton
and cocoa.
For further information, please contact:
Pranav Kumar, Policy Analyst, CUTS +9198295
87897;
pk@cuts.org |
