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Swadeshi Jagaran Manch asks govt to reconstitute IPR Think Tank to remove conflict of interest
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Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai
March 31 , 2015
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The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, a public interest group, has demanded to the
Union commerce ministry to reconstitute the Think Tank on IPR to remove
the conflict of interest and also to ensure the involvement of
academics especially with exposure to development economics, industrial
policy, technology policy and innovation.
In a letter to
minister of commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman, the Manch pointed
out that there is conflict of interest among the members of the Think
Tank. The Convenor of the Think Tank Y K Sabarwal, an ex WIPO
bureaucrat, is the Convenor of the IPR Committee of FICCI, a body
dominated by multinational companies. His membership in the Think Tank
compromises its neutrality. Similarly another member Prathiba Singh
appears for telecom and pharmaceutical multinational firms also raises
serious concern of conflict interest. The conflict of interest of these
members of the Think Tank would act as a barrier to draw a National IPR
Policy to address the development needs of the nation.
The
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in November last
year had constituted a IPR Think Tank to draft the National Intellectual
Property Rights Policy and to advice the DIPP on IPR issues.
Justice
(Retd) Prabha Sridevan is the chairperson of the IPR Think Tank. Other
members of the IPR Think Tank include Pratibha M. Singh, Senior
Advocate; Punita Bhargava, Advocate, Inventure IP; Dr. Unnat Pandit,
Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited; Rajeev Srinivasan, Director, Asian
School of Business, Thiruvananthapuram; and Narendra K. Sabarwal,
Retired DDG, WIPO.
In the letter, the Manch also demanded to the
commerce ministry to reorient the approach of the Think Tank and
National IPR Policy to address the technological and development needs
of the nation and also to put an end to the unreasonable hurry in the
formulation of National IPR Policy and commission studies and
consultations to identify the development and technological needs of the
nation. The Manch also asked the ministry to direct the reconstituted
IP Think Tank to identify the suboptimal flexibilities in the national
IP regime and make recommendation to optimise the use of flexibilities.
The Manch also expressed concern on the draft IPR Policy released by the IPR Think Tank recently.
“The
draft policy seriously undermines India’s technological progress in
critical areas to address the development challenges of the nation. It
is a well-recognised fact that in spite of technological progress in
areas such as space technology and pharmaceuticals, India is
technologically dependent on several critical areas especially to
revival of manufacturing sector, which is necessary to transform the
economy. The current scenario calls for a series of policy measures to
facilitate technology catching up and dissemination to promote domestic
entrepreneurship across the various sectors of the economy. Therefore
the domestic IP regime should play a facilitative role to support
technology catching up and dissemination” Swadeshi Jagaran Manch's
co-convenor AshwaniMahajan in the letter said.
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