Elumalai was awarded his degree by former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Governor K. Rosaiah 
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 He talks passionately about the rights of farmers on 
their produce, and wants to educate them on bio-privacy. The fact that 
he is visually impaired, he says, has never deterred him from completing
 his research on intellectual property, traditional knowledge and 
bio-diversity. 
On Thursday, 35-year-old S. Elumalai was awarded a Ph.D at the seventh convocation ceremony of Dr. Ambedkar Law University. 
A
 consistent gold medallist in various institutions, including Madras Law
 College, Elumalai hails from a village near Tiruvannamalai. 
“My
 father was a farmer, and I have always been interested in farming. But I
 also wanted to study and generate awareness about how we are exploited 
in the global economy,” he says.
Issues related to 
patents on traditional knowledge have always interested him, and he 
wants to delve deeper into studying trade agreements and policy. 
“We give our farmers subsidies, but we also exploit them. There is much they need to know about their legal rights,” he says. 
Elumalai now works with government and non-governmental organisations that look into patent issues. 
Former
 President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who delivered the convocation address, 
covered topics on law, technology and society and urged the graduating 
students to look into issues of cloning, bioethics, lunar mining, space 
law, cyber law and sea law that have been discussed in the recent past. 
He asked them to develop a righteous attitude, and play a balancing role in strengthening technological growth. 
Source :  The Hindu , 26th July 2013  
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