-Frontline   The Supreme Court's ruling against Novartis' patent claim for the cancer drug Glivec paves the way for generic drug companies to keep crucial, life-saving drugs affordable to the common people. By V. VENKATESAN IN their 112-page judgment delivered on April 1, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai of the Supreme Court began with a simple proposition: in order to understand what the law really is, it is essential to...

-The Times of India In the continuing 'Congress vs Congress' green battle, the Union tribal ministryhas once again rebuffed the Andhra government's attempt to start mining in tribal pockets of Vishakhapatnam, rejecting the claim that ban on sale or lease of tribal land to non-tribals was not applicable to state corporations. Reiteration of the illegality came after Andhra mounted a fresh defence of the bauxite mining lease - after a meeting in...

-First Post Electoral logic is driving the UPA towards a patent illegality: forcing people to part with sensitive private information such as biometric data or finger-prints without having any law to protect privacy in place. As things stand, getting yourself an Aadhaar card issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is voluntary; you are not legally bound to part with this information to anyone, leave alone the UIDAI ....

-The Hindu The Supreme Court judgment on Glivec is a blow for a patent regime with a higher threshold of inventiveness On April 1, 2013, the Supreme Court upheld the Intellectual Property Appellate Board's decision to deny patent protection to Novartis's application covering a beta crystalline form of imatinib -the medicine Novartis brands as Glivec, and which is very effective against the form of cancer known as chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). The...

-The Times of India It is universally recognised that for ensuring people's participation in governance and holistic development, the best instrumentality is local government. So when Parliament passed the 73rd Constitution Amendment Bill on December 23, 1992 to enshrine the essential features of panchayats in the Constitution, this was hailed as historic. But where do our panchayats stand 20 years after becoming institutions of self-government? A big issue before the founders of...