INDIA- PAKISTAN RELATIONS-Nuclear Brinkmanship

up in India to the Dunkel Draft, the US has once again named India as a 'priority foreign country', along with Brazil and Thailand, under the Special 301 provisions of the Trade Act on the ostensible ground that not enough progress has been made over the past one year towards providing effective patent protection in India. The objective seems to be to force India to tone down its position in the GATT negotiations on TRIPS. Against this background, the government of India is not confronting the basic issue when it asserts, by way of a response to the US action, that multilateral forums, such as the GAIT, are the best means for resolving such disputes. As it is, the government lost more than half the battle when it, along with China, caved in and agreed in the first place to negotiations on services, TRIPS and TRIMS as part of the GATT system. But even at this late stage it is necessary to take a clear position that the provisions of the present Indian law regarding patenting of agricultural and phar- maceutical products are not negotiable, whether bilaterally or multilaterally INDIAPAKISTAN RELATIONS Nuclear Brinkmanship?