TRIPS and Plant Variety Protection In India: Complicating the Globalisation Debate

This article looks at the enactment of the Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 in India in the wake of its membership to the WTO to analyse and complicate the ‘winners’ and the ‘losers’ narrative of trade liberalisation. By exploiting the concessions extracted under the TRIPS, the Act seems to balance competing interests – that of a steadily growing seed industry against the rights of poor farmers.