Even though the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has partially subsided across India, the extent to which citizens of the country have been affected continues to remain unclear. Official statistics show that the total number of those infected since the outbreak of the pandemic is pushing towards the 2.5 crore mark and more than 3 lakhs have lost their lives, figures that several prominent experts have questioned.
Well beyond these cold statistics is the cruel reality of human suffering…
By Myriam Vander Stichele | Guest Blog | April 15, 2021
UN Secretary-General António Guterres and world leaders sounded the alarm on debt payments recently at a high-level meeting on debt and liquidity. There are too many high debt payments diverting money needed by poorer countries to tackle the pandemic and its economic downturn, climate change, and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). In April 2020, the G20 offered ways and conditions to the poorest countries for suspending servicing their debt during the pandemic by launching the Debt Servicing Suspension…
The European Union (EU) is keen to enter into a trade agreement with India. EU was formed in 1993, and India was amongst the first countries to establish ties with this political and economic group. A cooperation agreement was signed between them in 1994. A decade later, in 2004, the relationship was upgraded to a ‘Strategic Partnership.’ The 2005 Joint Action Plan that followed committed both sides to develop trade and investment. Ever since then, both sides have been…
By Biswajit Dhar | Briefing Paper # 45 | March 8, 2021
In October 2020, India and South Africa had made a joint proposal to the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) seeking a temporary waiver of the obligations of Members to implement or apply four forms of intellectual property rights (IPRs) for the prevention, containment, or treatment of COVID-19.
The ostensible rationale behind the proposal was to free COVID-related medicines, vaccines, and medical products from the encumbrances of IPRs, which would allow…
On March 1, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took over as Director-General of the World Trade Organization. She is the first woman and the first African to serve as the Director-General of the WTO. These are indeed remarkable achievements that need to be noticed and celebrated. As she holds dual Nigerian and US citizenship, Okonjo-Iweala is also the first American to hold this position.
