-DNA "Frivolous and vexatious” — these were the words that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used while addressing this year’s edition of the annual Right To Information (RTI) convention. His choice of words raises several disturbing questions. The PM conveniently ignored the fact that there is no legal definition of what constitutes “frivolous and vexatious” and there is unlikely to be one in the future. Will one person’s understanding of “frivolous” be...

-The Times of India The Centre on Thursday promised to notify a new drug pricing mechanism for essential medicines by the end of November, but the Supreme Court said a change in policy must not force a sharp rise in drug prices to hurt an already hassled common man. Additional solicitor general Siddharth Luthra informed a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya that a Cabinet note on the...

-Live Mint Incidents at Bhopal and Indore highlight irregularities and ethical violations in some trials In 2004, doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC), established exclusively for treating the victims of the 1984 gas leak, recruited unsuspecting survivors for clinical trials without their knowledge or consent; 14 participants died during the course of the trials. Together with the episode in Indore’s Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (that Mint reported on 10...

-Live Mint The first in a two-part series examining the opaque world of clinical trials in India  A hospital in Indore has been able to get away with unethical medical trials in which 32 people have died over five years, according to the state government. This despite several investigations, a state government ban and Supreme Court strictures—a classic example of the lawless nature of the clinical trial business in India.   Lata Mehra, who...

-The Times of India Top Congress leader and defence minister A K Antony said government should not acquire land for private entities since it is a big trigger for agitations, reverting the debate over land acquisition bill to the strict norms that were sought to be diluted on the pretext of industrialization.  Antony told the Sharad Pawar-led group of ministers debating the proposed bill that land had become a scarce resource and...