3 reasons why India is a game changer in international affairs

1. Pharmaceutical companies & stupid patents over meds 
A few months ago the Indian Supreme Court refused to allow one of the world leading pharmaceutical companies to patent a new version of a cancer drug. Novartis lost a 6 year legal battle since the court decided that a few minor changes and improvements to the drug did not amount to innovation deserving a patent. Had the court asserted  that the drug is a new one, the manufacturer's (Novartis) control would extend over the new version of the drug. This judgment allows poor people to access medicines in cheaper and almost affordable to them prices. It also paves the way for similar rulings in the future in other countries as well. 

[Ironically enough this drug was manufactured in the first place in the US mostly due to public funding and now it is under Novartis intellectual property (see techdirt's brief but concise account and the NYTimes).]

2. Publishers & copyright
India will raise in December the issue of the copyright of textbooks in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). India will ask for the modification of the strict copyright criteria when it comes to the educational use of academic textbooks and the students' right to photocopy them.  

3. Cyberspace & illegal interception of communications 
India with Brazil and South Africa - the so-called IBSA Grouping - openly pointed out that the unauthorised practice of illegal interception of communications and data is a serious violation of national sovereignty and individual rights. Even though I am not 100% on the same side with these countries regarding their motives or even the precise way that they frame their disagreements, I have to give them that they stand up.  

Go India! In the Queen's name.

By air, sea, land ... and in cyberspace

'By air, sea, land', isn't this that we have been told when it comes to ensuring our security?

Now it is: 'by air, sea, land and in cyberspace', as per the screenshot of my Facebook page. 

Interesting. 

Cold War all over again - Spot the differences

The last couple of months I started reading and working on issues of international law and international human rights law on cyber-space. These issues are coined in the news and in official reports as 'cyber security' but I do not think that this catchy phrase conveys all the relevant questions.   

In any case, the other day I went through the US Administrative Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets (Feb 2013, available here). There are 4 reports attached to the Strategy, including the 2011 Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive Report. The first page of this Report is this: 

As I went on reading there was something bothering me about this picture. It was somehow familiar to me which did not make much sense because I had not read this report in the past. After a couple of minutes it hit me. All I did was to look for cold war posters on the Internet. These are some examples of US propaganda posters during the Cold War: 

via this link

via this link

via this link

Have I made my point clear? Do you notice the choice of the colours? It is usually red for the communists and silver/grey for the US. The symbols of power and what it is allegedly at stake - back to the day nuclear power and knowledge; today energy, telecommunications, genomics, information. The Chinese banknote featuring Mao! - the enemy must always have a face, be personified whereas we - us (US), the 'good guys', are represented by a picture appealing to the People - the Wall St. ironically enough. I could not tell what the US Counterintelligence Office had in mind when they designed this picture, but this picture surely looks like a Cold War propaganda poster. Quite impressive. And it was then that I noticed the Report's title Foreign spies stealing our secrets, which is a very cold war thing to say as well. Also the use of the word spies was quite passé until now, don't you think? Well, not anymore. Never underestimate a bunch of bureaucrats in the US Counterintelligence Office; they make policy and they shape our future.