Copyright and copy-making

The Delhi High Court verdict that photocopying portions of academic publications to make course packs for students does not amount to copyright infringement has been interpreted by many as a victory for the wider public interest of ensuring affordable access to quality educational material. The only question of law that arose in the suit filed by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis was whether the making of course packs by the Delhi University by authorising a photocopying store to make numerous copies of course material drawn from different books amounts to copyright infringement. The court says copyright is not a natural or common law right in India, but is subject to statute. It proceeds to hold that photocopying for academic purposes is not an infringement as Section 52(1)(i) of the Copyright Act permits the making of copies of literary works by a teacher or pupil ‘in the course of instruction’, a phrase interpreted to cover whole academic sessions, from the preparation of syllabus onwards.

Given that the law contains provisions barring infringement of copyright and listing acts that do not constitute infringement, there is no doubt that the legislature wanted to balance copyright protection with the public interest in ensuring access. Interestingly, the judge sees the ‘no infringement’ clauses as being consistent with articles in the Berne Convention and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which provide for domestic legislation to permit reproductions for specific purposes, as long as they do not conflict with normal exploitation of the works or unreasonably prejudice the rights-holder. The publishers have argued, in vain, that universities should not allow unrestricted photocopying, but instead apply for licences through the Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation, a registered copyright society. The publishers may pursue this aspect in their appeal, if there is one. The verdict may justly raise the concern whether conferring unrestricted reprographic rights on academic institutions will drive reputed publishers out of the field of education. It is true that academic publications, especially international ones, are expensive, putting them beyond the reach of many students. But the question is whether the balance between the competing interests has been fully preserved in the law. If reputed publishers feel that there is insufficient copyright protection and back out of educational publishing in the country, it will be equally injurious to the public interest.

Keywords: copyright law, Delhi University photocopying case

Source: The Hindu, 21-09-2016

What’s in a NAM? It was never more than a talking shop

It is time to put the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) out of its misery. It was never more than a talking shop, and there’s little to suggest anyone’s listening — not even among its 120 members.

The NAM summit last week in a Venezuelan island resort is of less consequence, if such a thing is even conceivable, than the 2012 gathering in Tehran. And nothing symbolises its irrelevance than the statement issued at the end of the proceedings: An appeal for the United Nations to be more inclusive. Plainly, the delegates could come up with nothing to discuss in Margarita Island that could not have been more usefully discussed on another island where most of them are headed this week: Manhattan, home to the UN General Assembly.

Indeed, the two most salient things about the NAM summit argue for the group’s dissolution. First, the location: Venezuela, one of the world’s most repressive states, where a corrupt and inept dictator, Nicholas Maduro, had managed to impoverish a small population, despite having access to vast petroleum resources. No self-respecting world leader would attend a $120-million party designed to aggrandise this odious man, which may explain why the most prominent head of state present was Iran’s Hassan Rouhani. (Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe kept him company.)

Which brings me to the second damning aspect of the summit: The long list of absentees. Only eight heads of state bothered to show up, down from an already embarrassing 35 in Tehran. The absentee-in-chief was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who correctly decided he had more important things to do.

If history shows Modi’s absence was the beginning of the end, it will be the more appropriate because it was an Indian prime minister’s presence that made the beginning possible. NAM was conceived in the atmosphere of excitement and possibility that characterised the 1950s, when the world was emerging out of the long, dark period of colonialism. Newly independent nations dreamed they could make their way in this new world without hewing to either of the big powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, eschewing the icy hostilities of the Cold War and bask in the warmth of Third World (as it was then known) cooperation. The co-founders were India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia’s Sukarno, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yugoslavia’s Josep Broz Tito, and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah were all figures of international consequence, and their collective charisma attracted lesser lights from around the world.

But by the time NAM actually got off the ground, in 1961, the idea had already been undermined. Tito, host of the very first summit, was for all practical purposes aligned to the Soviets. Many members would go on to pick sides in the Cold War, including India.

Thus born under an ill omen, NAM grew into a forum where developing nations could blame all their problems on the big powers, pretending that much of the membership survived on the dole or protection of those very same powers. Long before Margarita Island, the triennial summits were exhibitions of shameless hypocrisy by American and Soviet puppets, all professing complete independence.

Worse still, NAM became a platform for some of the world’s most despicable leaders to preen and posture: The list of secretary-generals includes Fidel and Raul Castro, Mugabe, Hosni Mubarak, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This effectively denied the movement any kind of moral high ground, and rendered risible its rhetorical broadsides against the inequities of the US and the USSR. Nor could it claim, with a straight face, to represent peoples freed from colonial servitude when so many of those people found themselves enslaved by home-grown tyrants.

NAM’s reason to exist ended in 1989, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. The world was left with a single superpower, the US, but quickly became multi-polar, with China and India emerging as strong magnetic forces in their own right. There would be new kinds of alignments, more likely to be defined by economics and geography than by ideology. To be aligned is now a virtue, a sign of good leadership. Countries, especially small ones, can and should aim for multiple alignments of their interests. There is now no country in the world that can claim to be non-aligned, not even North Korea, which is in many ways a Chinese protectorate.

The oldest joke about NAM is that it was always aligned, and never a movement. But we’ve laughed at this anachronism long enough. The vast bureaucracy that supports the institution is a waste of manpower, and most members could use those resources more gainfully elsewhere. If there are issues that unite the member nations, these would be better pursued by forming a lobbying block within the UN.

As for the pious pablum that passes for the collective statement of resolve at the end of each summit, that too can just as easily be issued from the UN.

Let Margarita Island be the last exhibition of this nonsense. NAM is dead. Let’s have a moment’s silence, not for the useless institution but for the noble idea that died at its birth, and then move on.

(Bobby Ghosh is the editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times. He has spent over two decades covering international affairs, including long stints as correspondent and editor in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the US. He tweets as @ghoshworld)

Source: Hindustan Times, 21-09-2016

Sikkim the best place to work for women, Delhi at bottom of list: Report

Tiny northeastern state of Sikkim has the best working conditions for women, while national capital Delhi fared the lowest, according to a report.

The report released by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a top American think-tank, and Nathan Associates, gave Sikkim the highest possible 40 points while Delhi received just 8.5.

The states were ranked according to four primary factors -- legal restrictions on women’s working hours in factories, retail, and the IT industry; the responsiveness of the state’s criminal justice system to crimes affecting working women, such as sexual harassment; the number of women workers in the state as a percentage of total workers; and the number of incentives the state’s startup and industrial policies offer women entrepreneurs.

“But the tiny northeastern state of Sikkim is the breakthrough state for women in the workplace, thanks to its high rates of female workforce participation, lack of restrictions on women’s working hours, and high conviction rates for workforce crimes against women (albeit on a small sample size),” the report said.

Sikkim is followed by Telangana (28.5 points), Puducherry (25.6), Karnataka (24.7), Himachal Pradesh (24. 2), Andhra Pradesh (24.0), Kerala (22.2), Maharashtra (21. 4), Tamil Nadu (21.1) and Chhattisgarh (21.1).

Four states (Sikkim, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu) have removed all restrictions on women working at night in factories, retail establishments and the IT sector, the report said.

In Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, these restrictions were removed as a result of a court judgment.

Maharashtra just missed a perfect score; it only allows women to work until 10pm in retail establishments.

On the other end of the spectrum, nine states and Union Territories do not formally allow women to work at night in any sector.

Fifteen states and Union Territories did not offer women entrepreneurs any special incentives in their business-promotion policies, it said.

“In something of a surprise, Delhi came last in our Index, due to its relatively low justice and workforce participation scores; its continued formal restrictions on women working at night in a wide range of sectors; and its lack of any incentives for female entrepreneurs in its industrial policies,” the report said.

India has the world’s lowest rate (24%) of female workforce participation.

This is a serious drag on growth. a 2015 report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that India could add 16% to its GDP in ten years if women participated in the workforce at the same rate as men.

But many states have laws limiting women’s working hours, and Indian women face harassment in the workplace and while commuting, it said.

Source: Hindustan Times, 21-09-2016

Heaven Is A State Of Our Consciousness

Sri Chinmoy





If you treasure a good thought, then you are creating Heaven. If you cry to God for light, then you get a good experience, an illumining experience, and this experience is nothing but heaven. Again, if you harbour a negative thought, then you are creating hell. In this manner, heaven and hell is experienced everyday .When the mind falls victim to worries, anxieties and other undivine forces; when the mind is disturbed, agitated, tortured by ugly , impure and undivine thoughts, we feel that we are in hell. But when the beauty , light and divinity of the heart come to the fore and we try to reveal and manifest them in the aspiring world, then we feel that we are in heaven.
We do not have to wait for death to find hell or heaven. Both are within us in our daily life and conduct. If we are always surrendered, we are in a position to remain always in heaven in this very life on earth. For each time we enjoy a pure thought, we feel that we are living in our own homemade heaven.
Just because we have not experienced the Infinite, the Immortal and the Eternal, we feel that the opposite, the finite, is hell. But the bondage that we are experiencing every day is only a passing phase. It is like an overcast day . For a few hours the sun may not shine, but finally the sun comes out.Each individual has an inner sun ­ now covered by fear, doubt, worries, anxieties, imperfections and limitations. But a day will come when we will be able to overcome these so that the inner sun shines forth brightly .
We are all God's children. For us there is no hell; there is only light. But if we do not see the truth in the way truth has to be seen, then there is inner pain.The truth is there, but we have to see truth in the proper way . Then only we will see that life has its true meaning.
Heaven means infinite peace, light and bliss. When a seeker prays and meditates, he enters into heaven. When his mind is calm and quiet, when his mind is tranquil, his heart becomes all-giving and his life becomes Divinity's Reality . Heaven is not a place; it is a state of consciousness. When we free our mind from the meshes of ignorance, we see, feel and grow into heaven.
The aim of the life is conscious realisation of God. Everyone has unconscious awareness of God. A seeker meditates on God and gradually, his own consciousness develops to such an extent that he feels God's presence constantly everywhere. A sincere seeker is a divine hero. He fights off the teeming darkness to fulfil God's will here on earth. Otherwise there will always be a yawning gulf between earth and heaven. This earth of our must be transformed into heaven, into a place of joy, peace, bliss and delight.
The very conception of heaven is something bright, luminous, delightful and, at the same time, immortal. But we have to know what is immortal in us.When we say that earth will be transformed into Heaven that means that anything that is within us or in the world that is now imperfect, obscure or uninspiring will be transformed eventually into perfection.

90% of 23 lakh cases pending for over 10 years are in 6 states

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Six states account for around 90% of the 23 lakh cases pending around the country that are older than 10 years, though not all of them are the largest states in terms of overall pendency .UP accounts for 30% of all 10-year-old cases pending countrywide, followed by Gujarat with 22%, Maharashtra (11%), Bihar (10%), Odisha (8%) and West Bengal (8%).Out of 2.29 crore cases pending in subordinate courts across the country , 22.95 lakh are older than 10 years. In addition, 40 lakh cases have been pending between five and 10 years. According to the National Judicial Data Grid, UP has close to 7 lakh cases which have been pending for 10 years or more. Gujarat has 5.13 lakh such cases, Maharashtra 2.57 lakh, Bihar 2.37 lakh, Odisha 1.82 lakh and West Bengal 1.72 lakh.
Many of these cases remain unresolved in subordinate courts for decades and are reflective of the slow moving justice delivery system.Around 71% of all cases pending for over 10 years are criminal cases where a court is bound to dispose of the matter in a fixed time.
However, of late, the judicial system in some states have shown the willingness to take up older cases on priority. For instance, Gujarat, which has the second highest pendency of old cases, disposed of 9,000 last month -over 6,400 criminal and 2,500 civil cases. UP has performed well too, with 6,600 cases older than 10 years disposed off last month alone, half of these were criminal cases. There are also huge va cancies in lower courts across the country . At least 4,432 judges' posts were vacant as of December 2015. Out of a sanctioned strength of 20,502 judges for subordinate courts, the strength stood at 16,050 last year.

Source: Times of India, 21-09-2016

With under-5 mortality down, India set to achieve its MDG

Kerala Only State To Record Increased Death Rate in 2014

India is set to achieve its millennium development goal (MDG) for under-five mortality by next year. In what comes as a significant indicator of improvement in child healthcare, India recorded a fourpoint decline in under-five mortality rate from 49 deaths per 1000 births in 2013 to 45 in 2014. India's MDG goal is 42.In 2014, India averted 1.26 lakh more deaths among children under-five years of age, according to data which are part of the sample registration survey for 2014, recently released by the Registrar General of India.
The survey indicates 8.16% decline in under-five mortality during 2013-14, as against 5.76% during 2012-13.
“We have initiated various interventions and expanded the coverage of immunisation. We are confident that by next year, we will achieve the millennium development goal target by bringing down the under-five mortality rate to 42,“ health minister JP Nadda told TOI.
While inequity in coverage of healthcare services has been a major concern in India, the latest data reflects the differential between rural and urban India for under-five mortality has also narrowed to 23 points, as compared to 26 points in 2013. In 2012, India's underfive mortality rate stood at 52.
The development assumes significance as India has the highest burden of child deaths in the world. India alone accounts for 22% of 6.3 million annual under-five deaths globally .Around 52% of under -five deaths happen at the neonatal stage.
Nadda said the dedicated efforts during the neonatal period through establishment of special new-born care units, systematic home visits by ASHA workers, improved breastfeeding practices and increase in institutional deliveries have led to India's progress.
According to the World Health Organisation, 36% of all neonatal deaths in India are on account of complications associated with premature births; 23% were due to asphyxia at birth; and another 23% due to a range of newborn infections, including neonatal sepsis.
While almost all states showed remarkable improvement in reducing deaths among under-five year-olds, Kerala was the only state where mortality rate increased by one point from 12 in 2013 to 13 in 2014. But still Kerala fared far better as compared to the national average.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Assam and Odisha where the under-five mortality rate was much higher in 2013 have all recorded a decline of over five points during 2014. Other states like West Bengal, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and J&K have also shown progress with a decline of more than four points in under-five mortality rate.

Source: Times of India, 21-09-2016

Assam Govt schools to be tobacco-free zones

The state government secondary schools in Assam are all set to be declared tobacco-free zones.

There are 4,316 government secondary schools in Assam. Of these all secondary schools in the districts of Lakhimpur, Baksa, Tinsukia, Udalguri, Sonitpur, Golaghat, Goalpara and Bongaigaon have been reported to be Tobacco-free Educational Institutions (TFEI), as per the submissions made by school inspectors to the secondary education department.

Secretary for Secondary Education R C Jain said educational institutes must be tobacco-free to ensure an atmosphere for imparting quality education and as such this has been accorded priority to this endeavour.

Jain said sustained efforts are leading to positive results.

Jain had launched the mission by issuing instructions on April 26 to all school inspectors and these included a set of questions for the school principals.

The principals have now started sending declarations that their institutes are tobacco-free, which are now being forwarded to the RMSA office.

The objective is to make schools tobacco-free in the state is being pursued by Healis Seksaria Institute for Public Health, education department and Dr B Barooah Cancer Institute, in association with Tata Trusts.

As many as 78 secondary schools in Bongaigaon, 189 in Baksa, 79 in Udalguri, 197 in Sonitpur and 120 in Goalpara have also been declared tobacco-free zones.

Jain said other districts are also working to achieve this goal.

Source: digitallearining. 15-09-2016