The manufacturing sector in the United States is witnessing a severe downfall, with most of the products being manufactured in China. The US is therefore, now looking to live off royalties on patents taken out on Indian traditional knowledge, Ayurveda and native crops of India. During his visit to India the US president Barack Obama had tried to pressurise India into diluting its Patent law but the Indian Government has so far refused to dilute its intellectual property rights laws, said noted environmental activist and author Vandana Shiva. She was speaking at the launch of her book ‘The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge-Biopiracy’ brought out by Natraj Publishers at a function in Central Academy for State Forest Service (CASFOS) officers club in Dehradun on Tuesday.
Addressing the forest probationers on the occasion, Shiva said, “In the 90s, major foreign companies that were involved in manufacture of toxic chemicals realised that they would need a more viable source of income. In India the economy, Ayurveda, agriculture and natural forests are based on biodiversity so such companies targetted this. I had to create the term ‘biopiracy’ to describe the theft of biodiversity and traditional knowledge as in the case of a patent taken out by an American company on Neem as a pesticide. We fought this case in the European Patent Office for 11 years and won. A Texas based company had also taken out a patent on Dehradun’s famous Basmati rice. Our native agricultural crops are climate resilient and at present about 1,500 patents have been taken out on such crops by companies indulging in biopiracy. The best way to deal with such patents is increase in awareness and increased use of our traditional knowledge and native biodiversity. When Obama had visited India and had sought dilution of our Patent law, I had written an open letter to Obama and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi questioning how a biopirate could dictate terms to India,” she said.
On being asked about her view on the Government’s Traditional Knowledge Digital library (TKDl) she said that it was only a digital documentation which had ignored agriculture completely without any scope for documentation of traditional knowledge handed down orally. There is no mention in TKDl of the two lakh rice varities that India used to have, she added. Forest Education director MP Singh and CASFOS officiating principal Meera Iyer also spoke on the occasion. Upendra Arora of Natraj Publishers was also present.