Sahai, S. (2003). India's Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001. Current Science, 84(3). 

Sahai, S. (2001). Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights Law. Economic and Political Weekly. 

Download the pdf here (PDF, 64KB).

Sahai, S. (2000). Farmers' Rights and Food Security. Economic and Political Weekly, 35(11). 

In a number of articles, Suman Sahai examines and comments on the Indian Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act of 2001.

In one of the final drafts before the bill was adopted, she found that provisions on the sale of seeds by farmers would threaten India's food security and thereby it's national security (2000). Her 2001 article, written after the adoption of the Act, analyses the Act, and finds that it recognizes farmers as conservers of the agricultural gene pool and as breeders, and provides for rights for rural communities. Improvements were are needed, but the major challenge would be to identify an international platform on which it would be possible to interact with other countries regarding the protection and promotion of farmers' rights in India and elsewhere. India should work along with other developing countries to evolve an alternative to Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, which she deems inappropriate to the needs of developing countries. In her 2003 contribution, she deepens her analysis of the inappropriateness of the Union as a platform for international recognition of plant breeders' as well as farmers' rights in developing countries.