The second day
of a national seminar on "Law, Society and Biotechnology Interface:
Emerging issues in North Western Region", being organised by UILS on
the ICSSR Complex, commenced on Thursday with the participants talking
on the issue of biotechnology and intellectual property laws.
Chaired by Prof
Shashi Sharma, Department of Laws, and co-chaired by Dr Parikshit
Bansal, Chairman, NIPER, SAS Nagar, the session focused on the impact
of biotechnology and patenting on environment, health and human
rights.
Dr Parikshit
Bansal concluded the talks by recognising the need of patenting and
also the importance of such laws that may regulate the
commercialisation of intellectual property with regard to the Indian
scenario.
The second
session commenced under the chairmanship of Dr Parikshit Bansal,
Chairman, NIPER, SAS Nagar, and Prof Upendra Sawhney, Chairperson,
Department of Economics, PU.
The session saw
brainstorming papers on various topics like the relation between law
and technology, the panoramic view on biotechnology vis-àvis IPR,
legal vs ethical implications of P300, narco-analysis test, the need
to make right to help and right to free environment fundamental rights
and the need for sui generis legal system for the protection of
biotechnological innovations.
In his concluding remarks, Dr Bansal highlighted the economic
implications of patents.
In the third
session, issues relating to patents and genetic engineering, legal
rights and public health were discussed. The session was chaired by
Prof Sukhdarshan Singh Khehra, Registrar, Punjabi University, Patiala
and co-chaired by Prof Sherry Sabharwal, Department of Sociology, PU.
This session saw
exhaustive discussion on issues like surrogacy, stem cell research,
gene patents and genetic engineering and eugenics.
Issues like DNA
technology and law, genetic signature, identity of human clones and
their implications were discussed in the 4th session which was chaired
by Dr Harpal Kaur Khehra, Department of Laws, Punjabi University,
Patiala, and Vikas Asawat, project officer, PSCST.
In all the
concluding day of the seminar was a platform for the biotechnologists
and lawyers to share and exchange their learning and ideas on the
themes of the seminar.
