E-Legal Education And Awareness: Do we have right quality of political leadership i...

E-Legal Education And Awareness: Do we have right quality of political leadership i...: Do we have right quality of political leadership and political institutions and Do we need any change in them to meet the new global econo...

E-Legal Education And Awareness: Piracy and legal issues in counter-piracy measures...

E-Legal Education And Awareness: Piracy and legal issues in counter-piracy measures...: DEFINITION- Piracy is a war-like act committed by non-state actors (private parties not affiliated with any government) against other p...

E-Legal Education And Awareness: Legalising Prostitution In India: A Kantian Analys...

E-Legal Education And Awareness: Legalising Prostitution In India: A Kantian Analys...: Introduction Prostitution is the act or practice of providing one’s body for sexual purpose to another person in return of payment. The pe...

Which direction the Indian economic and political reforms should tend to? and whether the food security bill and FDIC in retail is in right direction? by Mr S. Lakshma Reddy, Advocate, High Court of A.P.

Indian subcontinent with multicultural,multi lingual, multi religious and ethnic diversified castes,communities and faiths was prosperous when it was politically united, allowed non discriminatory free trade within the politically united country as in Ashoka period and Akbar period and poorer when it lost political unity and tattered in to economically fragmented discriminated markets. This should be the first lesson Indian politicians should keep in mind while taking policy decisions.

the second lesson is that in the recent internet led a globalized markets like banking,services, and financial and now commodity markets and even the real estate landed property markets, there is a real movement away from national markets to international and being transformed in to global markets with its ramifications on reassessment of relevance or irrelevance of the old political concepts like 19th century national sovereignty in 21st century integrated global political economy. The events in European zone and north America and middle east,south and south east Asia and more general scale between Ancient east and west, Asia and Europe including America will prove the natural tendency to redefine the 18th century dream concept "national soverignty" realized in 19th and 20th century.Indian politicians should wary of this natural tendency in geo-politics and economics and how to befit it without loosing the growth momentum.

Free Will ,conflicts of free wills and interests, avoidance conflicts and harmonization of broad cross sections of populations of the nation or nations through rule of law and its enforcement is the basis of long lasting economic and political institutions' foundations in any free world.whether the food security bill will pass the test?

food security to an individual is laudable in objective.but it should not be charity and paternalistic,impeding the liberty of contract and dignity of an individual,of impeding the increasing the division of labor and labor productivity and free labor market and wages.It should not hinder the free movement of labor and conversion of labor as capital consumption instead of revenue consumption i.e. increase the capitalistic/corporate relations in agriculture and other backward sectors or increase the wage burden on employers of such labor that will stultify the competitive edge of the said employments.Food security bill without the land reforms in the direction of separation of landownership from possession and management as outlined by me in the "issues for national consensus"(www.aplegalservices.com) will prove to be currupt populist measure pulling back the economy in opposite directions to the economic reforms initiated in 1991 policy frame misfitting the Indian economy to globalization of division of labor and employment which is the need of the hour. Therefore a review of food security bill is necessary before it is hastily enacted in parliament .

A comment on 51% ownership controlled and managed foreign direct investment in multi brand retail sale is necesary.Purely economic and commercial trade in retail outlets perse is beneficial to Indian economy as proved to be with east india company.  Experience has  also shown that  the country's legal system should be  best fitted with controlling strong-arm market and political manipulative strategies of  such centralized globally- armed supply chain firms with capacity to price discrimination to decimate the local market competition with equal power of enforcing law and  criminal penalties against them through an efficient speedy and independent judiciary

Lesson from Experience with east India company, its origin, rise and fall ,its conversion from trading corporation to political sovereign corporation is apt one to prevent the trader/business corporate interests to combine with political power like Clive, Hastings,chides and crony capitalist class developing in many developing nations and notably in India is as much a threat to Indian democracy and rule of law from inside as is foreign trading corporations outside and a legislation barring corporate interests and the politicians having corporate interests from eligibility to any office of legislative, executive or judicial posts.Legislation in that direction is necessary while welcoming the FDIC without cap.

Eternal vigilance of citizens  is the price of freedom and  democracy from such  corrupt people,not mere legislation. 

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Follow Mr S. Lakshma Reddy, Advocate, A.P. High Court at http://slakshma.goforthelaw.com

NEED FOR REFORMS IN IPR LAWS IN INDIA by Sarvesh Shahi, LL.M.1st year, NALSAR University Of Law

“Until the 19th century, intellectual property rights were protected by common law — contract law. At first it appears to be a good idea to codify common law into statutory law, but if you look at IPR law, it only creates arbitrary definitions and confusion. That’s what you get when you move away from principle, morals and common law, to explicit legislation.”

What Is IPR ?

Intellectual property rights are legal rights, which result from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary and artistic fields. These rights give statutory expression to the moral and economic rights of creators in their creations. Intellectual property rights safeguard creators and other producers of intellectual goods and services by granting them certain time-limited rights to control the use made of those productions. These rights also promote creativity and the dissemination and application of its results and encourage fair-trading, which contributes to economic and social development.

Background

In the year 1883 Paris Convention for protection of industrial property came into existence. This was the first internationally recognized agreement for cooperation among nations for the protection of  intellectual property where 140 states signed to implement its provisions. The Paris Convention bears the concept of union. This meant that a national of any country of union enjoyed the protection of industrial property in all other countries of the union, to the extent of advantages of the laws granted to its own nationals. India was not its member but after signing the Trade Related Aspects Of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), is now obliged to recognize and implement the provision to national treatment to nationals of other members which was the concept of paris convention.

The Paris Convention dealt with Patents, Trademarks, Designs and Utility Models but did not deal with copyright. The first international convention addressing copyright was “The Berne Convention of 1886”, to which India is one of the members, among 120 states.

During 1980s, multi-national corporations and international agencies started emphasizing to include intellectual property as a subject of discussion at General Agreements On Tarrifs And Trade (GATT), as the developed countries were curious to get statutory protection for their patents, trademarks and designs, which were largely being infringed by developing countries.

In the absence of global legal provisions, each country either followed its own statute or had no statute at hand. After the sustained efforts of universal IP law, the developed countries in the year 1986 could get some relief, when the Uruguay round of negotiations concluded with the signing of the ‘Final Act’.

Types Of IPR

In general there are three types of rights available to the intellectual and creative persons, they are :

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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT : Why There is a Shift From Economic Development to Human Development and How That Shift is Measured ? by Akhilesh Patel, NLSIU

1.     INTRODUCTION

Development refers to economic, social, political and cultural processes of change in human societies which seeks to satisfy the spiritual and material needs of man. Historically this development process was state centric with given primacy on physical accumulation of income or materials. Individuals in process of such kind of development were marginalized by powerful and rich community having supports and backup of western governments and institution promoting capitalist oriented development theories. Trickle down approach furthered by structural adjustment programmes of World Bank and IMF lead to the detrimental of human life. John F. Kennedy and his successors following the principles of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ led to sunk several smaller boats under high rise of tide. There have been four theories regarding the nexus between economic growth and social development- The first theory holds the view that social development is a product of economic growth. This theory is well known as trickledown theory that makes emphasis on economic programs and assumes that economic growth would tend to produce social development. Okun and Richardson defined economic growth as "a sustained, secular improvement in material well-being as reflected in an increasing flow of goods and services." Thus it encourages throwing resources for economic growth and privatization. The second theory says that economic growth and social development are two unrelated events - Zuvekas as champion of this approach says that economic growth can occur without social welfare development and therefore countries should limit the distribution of the domestic benefits of growth to privileged elite at the expense of widespread social welfare development. He states that without specifically targeting the poorer sections of the population for assistance in meeting basic needs, economic growth could produce an ever widening gap between the wealthy and the poor.The third theory describes that neither social development nor economic growth is a primary cause of the other, but they are inter dependent –As a proponent of this view ,  Srinivasan is of the opinion that the policies for economic growth and the policies towards basic needs development are interwoven. He suggests that too much emphasis on basic needs would, at least in the short run, hurt economic growth which, in turn, would damage future improvement in the basic needs fulfillment. The fourth theory holds the view that social development precedes economic growth - Streeten as proponent of this approach has expressed that extra income would not always be spent on items basic to the individual's welfare. He notes that some basic needs may be satisfied more effectively through public services including access to clean drinking water, schools and health services, and therefore, are not directly linked to individual income. In fact, Streeten suggests a ‘trickle-up’ effects when he states "basic needs is not primarily a welfare concept; improved education and health can make a major contribution to increased productivity[1]."

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effectiveness of sanctions in international environmental law by by Divya Rathor, NALSAR University of Law

Introduction

Effectiveness of sanction in international environmental law is a topic of   debate in recent world of modernization, globalization, liberalization and privatization. With the advent of  the technology,  the mother nature has been exposed to risk of environment degradation, so it has become necessary to look out for sanctions to control the menace and also to check the effectiveness of the sanctions.

The polluter pays  principle  or PPP, as one of the basic tenets of the concept of sustainable development provides for effective sanction for environmental law. According to the principle the polluter has to pay compensation for the loss done to persons, loss done to the environment as well as for the restoration cost of the environment. The principle has proved itself to be effective in protecting the environment. The recent application of the principle is found in Gulf of Mexico, oil Spill case.

The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972, or The London Dumping Convention,  Marpol 73/78, STCW CONVENTION, 1978, Convention on Liability for Damage Resulting from Activities Dangerous to the Environment also provide for some what effective sanctions of international environmental law.

The case of Nauru and Nuclear testing by USA in Marshall Islands are the examples of case where the sanctions imposed for wrong done to the environment are effective but  have been criticized as inadequate.

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