Plagiarism? By the Mashelkar Committee?

First, some background: a committee was set up sometime ago by the Ministry of Commerce with R.A. Mashelkar (ex-CEO of CSIR) as its chairman. It examined whether certain provisions in India’s new patent regime were compatible with TRIPS, a WTO agreement to which India is a signatory. The committee’s report was submitted in December 2006. In two different op-eds today, Chan Park and Achal Prabhala claim that the committee’s conclusions have been “borrowed, without acknowledgement” from a study funded by an industry-friendly think tank based in the UK.

Two links:

1. While the Mashelkar report is in the public domain, the original is not; so, a direct verification of plagiarism is difficult. However, the ‘incriminating evidence’ is in this post by the author of the original study, Shamnad Basheer.
2. Over at Mutiny.in, Guru has collected a bunch of relevant links.