Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Given how corrupt, incompetent and self-serving our politicians are, I’ve been a fan of judicial activism. And then the Supreme Court ruled in September, 2013 that “no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card, inspite of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory”. I had assumed that the reason for the SC ruling was that not everyone had been issued one yet; so I felt it was really a comment on the timing. But as it turns out, the SC ruling was against the whole concept of Aadhar. Because the court reiterated the 2013 ruling recently when 750 million Aadhar cards have been issued! So what are the problems exactly? Security risks, claims the lawyer who argued against it: “On the surface it (Aadhaar) is a simple document of identity, but it has linkages by means of iris scans and biometric details. God forbid if identities are exchanged or mistaken. The Executive's scheme involves private partners. Who are these private partners?”

Especially since the Apple v/s Samsung patent wars, patents have a bad name. What started off as a way to encourage innovation and protect the rights of inventors deteriorated into a ridiculous system that granted patents for insane and obvious things. Like those (in)famous rounded rectangles of Apple… But one area where I was supportive of patents was the pharma industry. After all, R&D costs a lot of money. There is no guarantee of success; and surely companies deserve a proportional reward for such risks that they took. And all the clinical trials and regulatory clearances before they can market medicines cost time and money. Hence to me, pharma was one industry where patents still made sense. But the recent Indian Supreme Court ruling shooting down the patent on Novartis's drug Glivec was a good example of how even pharma companies abuse the system: and no, I am not talking in some “how can you put a cost on human life” kind of way. Take a look at what Novartis w