-The Business Standard A ray of hope for Indian generic drug makers Gilead Sciences, the California-headquartered biotechnology company, has authorised seven India-based drug makers - Cipla, Ranbaxy, Mylan, Strides Arcolab, Hetero, Cadila Healthcare and Sequent Scientific - to manufacture and sell the generic versions of its hepatitis C medicine, Sovaldi, in 91 developing countries. Earlier in the week, Lupin, the fourth largest Indian drug maker, announced that it will develop and supply...

-The United Nations A new United Nations-backed report launched today reveals that 22 million people worldwide were displaced in 2013 by disasters sparked largely by earthquakes or climate- and weather-related events - almost three times more than by conflict in the same year. The report, Global Estimates 2014: people displaced by disasters, conducted by the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), shows that the risk of displacement due to disasters...

-The Hindustan Times Before climate change became the most important global environmental concern, the depletion of the ozone layer dominated the discourse. This depletion was being caused by the use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) primarily in refrigerators and of HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) largely in air-conditioners. To deal with this threat, following the Vienna Convention in 1985, the Montreal Protocol came into existence in 1987 with a Multilateral Fund following in 1991. This has...

-The Business Standard Ministers in the Narendra Modi government have been busy making presentations on their 100 days of work. But what these presentations do not mention is that decisions by ministers have been few, with plenty of papers and files moving to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which is increasingly emerging as a centralised clearance point, even for routine and ordinary issues. Though policy paralysis was a term used freely...

-The Indian Express International experience points to the dangers in moving towards a system of health insurance coverage. Improving government services is the answer. Last month, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan offered a glimpse into the new government's universal health assurance scheme, of which insurance will be an important component. Health insurance is also part of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, the NDA government's financial inclusion programme. But international experience does...