-The Economic Times The Supreme Court has pulled up the CBI for misleading it on whether the agency had shared its status report with the government. Indeed, there can be no excuse for misrepresenting facts to the apex court. The Additional Solicitor General who told the court something that he knew to his personal knowledge to be false and the Attorney General who did not make amends must both go. The...

-The Business Standard The Novartis verdict by the Supreme Court emphasised the importance of flexibilities in drug patent laws, in contrast to Western countries which are seeking TRIPS-plus hardening through free-trade agreements As curtains on the six-year-long legal tussle with Swiss drug giant Novartis AG finally came down earlier this month, the Indian government did not waste a second in hailing the Indian patent law which it said was in "full...

-The Hindu Business Line   Arsenic and fluoride contaminated water has condemned millions to live wasted lives in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Business Line visited several villages in the affected regions for this special report by A. Srinivas. Sixty-nine-year-old Renubala Ari of Deganga village in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district is counting her last days. But it is not her death that worries her. Blind in both eyes and with painful...

-The Hindu Business Line From maker of versions of drugs, India's pharmaceutical industry has turned a top innovator Twenty years ago, Ranbaxy was a home-spun drug-maker. The Indian Patents Act allowed companies to make chemically-similar versions of innovative drugs. Visionaries in the pharmaceutical sector, like Parvinder Singh (Ranbaxy's key architect and member of its promoter family) and Anji Reddy (founder of Dr Reddy's Laboratories), were alive. And the pharmaceutical industry did not have...

-The Hindu     They say Supreme Court-appointed panel's recommendations reasonable Even as the final report of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on open field trials of genetically modified crops is awaited, 51 independent international scientists with expertise in genetic engineering and biosafety protocols have approved the panel's Interim Report. The report has called for a 10-year moratorium on open field trials of Bt food crops until adequate regulatory mechanisms and safety...