In a judgment delivered on December 21, 2018 a judge of the Uttarakhand High Court ruled that Divya Pharmacy, an Indian company that manufactures Ayurvedic medicines, will be subject to the benefit sharing obligations under the Biological Diversity Act. As a result, Divya Pharmacy will be required to make payments to the Uttarakhand State Biodiversity Board as per the rates laid down in the Access and Benefit Sharing Guidelines, 2014. Like many other Indian companies, Divya Pharmacy had taken the…

Earlier this year, a group of primarily Indian scientists stirred a pot a bit when they published a piece in Science on how the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) is a ‘cure’ that ‘kills’ because it has made biodiversity research quite complicated. The argument put forth by these scientists is that the CBD was inspired by unrealistic expectations regarding the commercial value of their biological resources and that the fences erected by national legislation (in pursuance of the CBD) have…

The Business Standard recently reported that Baba Ramdev’s firm Patanjali has run into trouble under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and is challenging demands from state biodiversity authorities that it share its revenues with farmers whose biological resources it uses. The report is behind a paywall and Business Standard’s subscription policy requires an automatic renewal being charged to credit cards because of which I refuse to subscribe to the service. Nevertheless, the headline gives enough information to discuss the mounting…