Exploring the flexibilities in TRIPS: lessons from India's pharmaceutical patent law

This article examines the extent to which the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) permits countries to utilize two key flexibilities, i.e. the exclusion of new forms of known drugs from patent protection and local working requirements to facilitate access to affordable medicines and foster domestic pharmaceutical innovation. It examines how India has implemented and recently utilized these two key flexibilities and concludes with the view that other developing countries can equally follow the Indian model.     

Qualitative investigation of the impact of internationalization of education on host community's eating habit

Although education tourism has over the years enjoyed great attention by scholars largely because of its impact in shaping both the economic and political landscape of nations, an ample number of such studies have focused on the impact of the host community on the adaptation and survival of the sojourning foreign students or education tourists. There has been significant research into student's acculturation, mobility, and the likes, but research on the reverse impact of sociocultural interaction of these education tourists on their host communities is scarce. North Cyprus, a small island state with economic dependence on education, is a thriving host community for a substantial number of an education tourist. This study explores the influence of internationalization of education on the food consumption habit of indigenes of their host community. Data generated from a focus group of North Cyprus indigenes were used to examine how the influx of educational tourists have altered and shaped their eating behavior and culture. Current study contributes to both literature and tourism sectors by showcasing the importance of cultural transfer of education tourism.     

Twenty reasons why local knowledge will remain relevant to development

Local knowledge has continued to gain popularity among development practitioners in the last four decades. However, the future of local knowledge seems hazy to some academics and researchers, perhaps due to the methodological challenges in operationalising local knowledge in development research. Rather than appropriate its full potential for sustainable (global) progress, renditions on the relevance of local knowledge in development research agenda have largely become rhetoric. Nonetheless, this viewpoint outlines 20 pertinent reasons in support of the relevance of local knowledge and why it has a future in development theory and practice.     

Lessons of endogenous leadership in Nigeria: innovating to reduce waste and raise incomes in the cassava processing and goat-keeping systems

Agricultural innovations are increasingly emerging from African research scientists. This paper looks at an innovation developed by animal scientists at the University of Agriculture Abeokuta in Nigeria. They identified a method for drying cassava peels, which creates an income source for rural women, reduces environmental waste, and raises the income of goat herders by transforming the cassava waste into animal feed. Initially funded by a World Bank grant, this paper addresses the challenges of securing donor funding for local innovations and presents an argument for a new model of development that supports locally driven solutions to current development issues.     

Inter-disciplinarity,development studies,and development practice1

The article primarily seeks to show the interconnectedness of diverse academic disciplines and their crucial role in development practice. It sheds light on the meanings of development-related concepts and seeks to delineate between the four inter-related concepts of multi-, inter-, trans-, and cross-disciplinarity. It argues that while inter-disciplinarity is desirable for a broad-based discipline such as Development Studies, the appropriateness of the concept when juxtaposed with trans-disciplinarity seems somewhat inadequate. Buttressing the importance of the contributions of all disciplines and of course development initiatives to Development Studies, case studies of failed water and agricultural projects – which never incorporated vital and cognate expertise – in the South are, thus, provided in the discourse.     

The sexual objectification of girls and aggression towards them in gang and non-gang affiliated youth

Sexual objectification is related to various negative attitudes and outcomes, including rape proclivity and reduced moral concern for the objectified, which suggests that objectification has implications for aggression. Our study examined the relationship between objectification and general aggressive behaviour in adolescents, including gang-affiliated youth. We hypothesized that (1) objectification would correlate with aggression towards girls, (2) gang affiliation would correlate with objectification and aggression towards girls, and (3) objectification and gang affiliation would interact such that strongly affiliated participants who objectified girls would be most aggressive towards them. We also hypothesized that sexual objectification would be a significant predictor of aggression above and beyond other factors, such as trait aggression. As predicted, objectification correlated with aggression towards girls and with gang affiliation, which also correlated with aggression. In addition, objectification predicted aggression towards girls, after controlling for other relevant factors. Further, we found an objectification?×?gang affiliation interaction, which differed from our original predictions. Among participants low in gang affiliation, objectification of girls predicted levels of aggression towards them. Among those high in gang affiliation, however, objectification did not predict aggression. We discussed the implications of our findings for general aggression.     

Whole Soyinka and the Poetry of Isolation

This paper provides a glimpse of Islamic scholarship in Mirriah, Niger Republic, at a particular point in time, 1974–1975, before some of the latest currents of religious unrest erupted in West Africa. Through interviews with local scholars, it examines the degree to which they participated in a West African “core curriculum” shared with other Islamic scholars across the Sahel. It also explores the history of the malamai class in Mirriah, noting significant ties to the Bornu empire. Both the ruling dynasty and Mirriah itself also exemplify the process of “becoming Hausa”: people of diverse origins have come to define themselves as Hausa, adopting the Hausa language and the religion of Islam.