India

There is a bill being considered in India that would create monopoly rights over traditional knowledge and classify it under intellectual property law, The Hindu's T. Nandakumar reports. R.S. Praveen Raj, a former examiner with the India Patent Office, said codifying formulations based on Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga could mean they would be shared in a database with the European Patent Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and leave "'scope for private appropriation of [traditional knowledge] by making cosmetic improvements.'"

The Washington Post's Annie Gowen reports that employees at a courthouse in India think there are ghosts haunting their judicial complex: "Books have disappeared, strange noises have been heard. Computers and lights have seemed to switch on by themselves." The local bar installed closed-circuit television cameras to investigate the strange occurrences. One lawyer reported hearing loud knocking and seeing a "padlock swinging wildly back and forth, seemingly on its own."

The Indian Supreme Court has recognized transgendered people as a third gender, The Times of India reports: "In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday created the 'third gender' status for hijras or transgenders. Earlier, they were forced to write male or female against their gender." That means transgendered people in India can have protection from discrimination at work and in school. However, the court limited its ruling to eunuchs, not others who identify as transgender.

Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the India Supreme Court upheld a "153-year-old colonial-era law that criminalizes gay sex, leaving it up to lawmakers to amend the legislation in a setback for homosexual rights in the world’s second-most populous country."

Niranjan Sahoo, an analyst with the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, told Bloomberg: '“Indian society is largely conservative, feudal, and lawmakers have the same values. So any proposal of this nature with radical consequences won’t see the light of day.”'

The two-judge panel said that the law was constitutional. However, an appeal to a five-judge panel is planned.

Foreign Affairs has this piece on several problems India is facing, including a lapdog press: "Restrictions have also been placed on civil rights; libel and defamation laws have become unsettlingly wide. Indeed, national newspapers and magazines, far from serving as a powerful fourth estate, are now commonly viewed as subservient to members of the government." Further, a governmental official floated the idea of governmental licensing of members of the media: "the minister of information and broadcasting recently put forward the idea that journalism, like law or medicine, should require an exam to assess competency. This would be an especially foreboding precedent: since Indira Gandhi evoked emergency laws in 1974, the media has generally been free to cast a critical eye on the government."