Sessions: Pre-Market Structures Facilitating Business

• Case: Gilvec by Novartis

• Concept of evergreening where this is done to abuse patenting. Gilvec was medicine for blood
cancer and Novartis just did a minor change in salt to renew the patents as it was expiring.
• Real issue “Issue was not ‘India not granting patents’, but ‘whether a salt form of an existing
drug deserved a patent in India’?” Also, pharma companies have one of the highest profit
margins in the industry (42%)
• B: No incentive for innovation, might lead to companies withdrawing meds from the
developing market. Many times, R&D won’t succeed in discovering something new, so that
investment need to be balanced out.
• G: Govt. has a moral responsibility of welfare of its citizens, especially those who belong
underprivileged strata and can’t afford a treatment. Patent office (part of G) has to decide
which cases are actually innovative vs which just want to utilise loopholes to benefit from grey
areas of law
• S: Society has right to ask govt. for some shielding against exploitive nature of organisations
and question crony capitalism (in case found). Access to affordable medicines is required.

Sessions: Classic and Current Views on Market Failures and Regulation

• Case: Delhi Water and Power

• Electricity supply was in dire state in delhi, it was privatised by formation of 6 new companies
and introduction of Tata and Reliance in the value chain. Similarly Delhi Water Board (DWB),
a namesake autonomous agency was responsible for water supply in Delhi. DWB was on
reform stage when they hired PwC as consultant and wanted two of the 21 zones in Delhi to
be handled by US and French company. However, high opposition by NGO ‘Parivartan’. (See
exhibit 9 for chronology samjhne ke liye)
• B: State run companies were suffering from huge losses as well as inefficient operations. They
must do reforms to sustain themselves. Since they involve govt. stakes in them, they are under
constant scrutiny. While hiring companies for reform, they should have kept public in the loop
via pressure groups, advertisements etc.
• G: Govt responsible to ensure public utilities are provided at an affordable cost to the citizen
and shouldn’t deny them of basic facilities. At the same time, it has to balance companies
concerns as well where they have to ensure that right revenues is reached to make these
companies sustainable.
• S: NGOs should see the macro picture. While it’s good to be vigilant about the happenings,
they must make sure that they aren’t merely putting allegations. Public need to understand
that these companies need funds to sustain and an awareness about them is required.

Sessions: The Flashpoints – Land

• Case: SEZ in India (A & B)

• Two things happening. One is Singur violence in Nandigram due to Nano factory issue in
Bengal. Other is land acquisition act of 2007 which gave govt. much power to acquire land
by broadening scope of ‘public purpose’. In amidst this was the question of ‘Are SEZs
actually helpful and utilised’
• B: Business gets a tax holiday in SEZs where they can do their activity (See exhibit 7 &8).
Also, they can get reduced/no taxes on procuring raw materials. Many of them have to
hire from the talent pool of people who get displaced from the land acquired for SEZ and
 that is an issue as many of them don’t have the skills. Also, like in Mahindra case, they
suffer from lack of talent as SEZs are located on outskirts of the city.
• G: While increasing the common good is one on the mind of govt, how successful are
these SEZ remains a question. Also, they must take care that people who are displaced
not only get fair compensation but get job opportunities as well as skill enhancement.
Govt. also has a role to keep builders and illegal practices in check be it land prices increase
or smuggling due to differential tax rates.
• S: Society going through change as industrialisation is happening – Farmers with smaller
land-holdings are forced to give up land – need to get organised – defend their land for
formation of SEZ by appealing to political parties – white papers on utility of SEZ to bring
change in legislation.
• Slides are must see in this (Only 19 slide, just skim to get a feeling, you can do it!)

Session: Disruptive Technology and Regulation

• Case: Uber & Stakeholders (Read page 6 and further, actually, just skim)
• We all know what Uber is and how it operates. The case tracks the history of Uber from its
beginning to 2014 when it was in the phase of the explosive growth and the challenges it was
facing in between.
• B: Uber faced multitude of problems, be it getting recognised in the first place by different
companies, Travis getting charged in different acts, fight with the regulators (both inside and
outside) as well as other stakeholders. As a business, it has to make sure that the fast pace of
disruption is well complemented with legal frameworks
• G: Govt. has to tread on the fine line of promoting innovation as well as making sure that
interest of stakeholders is protected. They also have to face pressure groups such as auto
unions. On each touch point such as collection of user data to safety of passenger, pricing and
even VC interaction with company, uber is facing challenge.

Session: BGS-Labour

• Concept of Taylorism: Scientific management of labour, e.g. some man are more motivated
than other, time and motion study
• Luddite: Acting against the tech, fearing that it will take us over
• Labour laws in India often aren’t fully implemented, change in the way they are put, eg SEZ
have relaxed labour laws which can lead to exploitation. Min wages don’t reduce
unemployment
• Challenge is not only legislation, but loopholes (eg moving many industries eg Software to
essential act and then not allowing employees to strike, unions have little to less powers and
marred with corruption)

Session: BGS- Agriculture

• Problems faced are the one which you can think of, such as middlemen taking away the
profits, small size of landholding making cropping unprofitable, low awareness of scientific
methods and other globe.
• Know a bit about green revolution, happened by high yielding varieties of wheat, however,
created a lot of divide by segregating farmers who can irrigate vs who don’t have that facility.
• Farmer credit risky as crop dependent on monsoon, high amount of people employed (&
marginal share increase as well) but GDP share declining, disguised
 unemployment/underemployment. Inadequate crop insurance which can protect against
rain failure.
• How subsidies are taken away by mostly rich farmers. Govt employing this short-term
measure than long one of agri R&D (we have one of the lowest) and building infra.
• Contract farming? (like reliance fresh), GM Crop ? (BT Cotton), Kudumbashree (women
farming as more women 79% in farming than men 63%)

Session- BGS- Health

• Will directly jump to phases of India health policy, other part are the globe which you can
write such as why India don’t have solid health system? Because less spending as part of GDP,
High population, crumpling infra etc.
• Phase 1 (47-83), it was based on 3 tier of health care (primary, secondary and tertiary) with
aim of reaching villages as the basic unit. Failed because health is state subject while funding
via centre. Important points during this phase was family planning and drug price control to
make it affordable
• Phase 2 (83-90), govt recognise need of private sector to meet demand, national health policy
formulated, hospital declared as industry so they can raise funds and run like a company,
pharma industry started de-regulation, while price control eased, generic companies like
Ranbaxy thrived on expired patents
• Phase 3 (90-05), Govt, used this time to dip its expenditure on health, leaving more people at
mercy of private sector, even medical education became high cost, even govt hospital started
taking fees which was free earlier
• Phase 4 (05 – ‘ ’), Patent law changed from process to product(remember Gilvec case) and
National Health Mission to reach last mile

Session – BGS- Education

• Why study? Because it builds human capital (educated people have better productivity) and
also signalling effect in market for job (education serve as way to level up asymmetric labour
market).
• Key issues in India’s education policy – Equality, Quality and Quantity

Paper Solving

1. Globalisation wrt Gilvec and SEZ: Both happened because India comes under WTO framework
– society undergoing change- Need of balance
2. Chomsky - https://prruk.org/noam-chomsky-the-five-filters-of-the-mass-media-machine/
For SM, refer FB article
3. Belief in govt on accountability, corruption, crony capitalism, corporates uses foundation to
gain tax advantages. In India, most of big business do CSR but does it really benefit or just
because govt. asked them to do so
(https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/1wIQwFPRyRckBMg5IugW1K/Why-the-CSR-law-is-not-
a-success.html)