Indian Institue of Management 2000 M.B.A CAT - Question Paper

Item Code : CAT 2000 (Test)
CAT 2000
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CAT 2000
(The true CAT 2000 paper)
Test Form Number 111



DIRECTIONS : every of the 5 passages provided beneath is followed by ques.. select the best ans of every ques..


PASSAGE I

The current debate on intellectual property rights (IPRs) raises a number of important problems concerning the strategy and policies for building a more dynamic national agricultural research system, the relative roles of public and private sectors, and the role of agribusiness multinational corporations (MNCs). This debate has been stimulated by the international agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), negotiated as part of the Uruguay Round. TRIPs, for the 1st time, seeks to bring innovations in agricultural technology under a new worldwide IPR regime. The agribusiness MNCs (along with pharmaceutical companies) played a leading part in lobbying for such a regime during the Uruguay Round negotiations. The argument was that incentives are necessary to stimulate innovations, and that this calls for a system of patents which provide innovators the sole right to use (or sell/lease the right to use) their innovations for a specified period and protects them against unauthorised copying or use. With strong support of their national governments, they were influential in shaping the agreement on TRIPs, which eventually emerged from the Uruguay Round. The current debate on TRIPs in India-as indeed elsewhere-echoes wider concerns about 'privatisation' of research and allowing a free field for MNCs in the sphere of biotechnology and agriculture. The agribusiness corporations, and those with unbounded faith in the power of science to overcome all likely problems, point to the vast potential that new technology holds for solving the issues
of hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the world. The exploitation of this potential should be encouraged and this is best done by the private sector for which patents are essential. Some, who do not necessarily accept this optimism, argue that fears of MNC domination are exaggerated and that farmers will accept their products only if they decisively outperform the available options. Those who argue against agreeing to introduce an IPR regime in agriculture and encouraging private sector research are apprehensive
that this will work to the disadvantage of farmers by making them more and more dependent on monopolistic MNCs. A different, though related apprehension is that extensive use of hybrids and genetically engineered new varieties might increase the vulnerability of agriculture to outbreaks of pests and diseases. The larger, longer-term consequences of decreased biodiversity that may follow from the use of specially bred varieties are also a different reason for concern. Moreover, corporations, driven by the profit motive, will

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