-The Times of India AURANGABAD/ PUNE: An 11-month-old boy from Maharashtra's Beed district has been found infected with the vaccine derived polio virus (VDPV). This is the first such case in the state and the third in the country since March 2012. Health officials said the boy's stool sample tested positive for VDPV on June 1. "The child has been ill for prolonged periods, indicating the possibility of immunodeficiency," an official said. The...

-The Hindu Vina Mazumdar, doyenne of the Indian women's movement, architect of the epochal Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India in post independent India, passed away in a central Delhi hospital on May 30 after a brief illness. In the introduction to her memoirs published by Zubaan in 2010, she described herself as a "women's activist", a "feminist,", a "trouble-maker", but the one she liked best was...

-Economic and Political Weekly While the Supreme Court decision in the recent Novartis case has cleared the way for production of generic drugs in India, doctors have to prescribe cheaper alternatives to costly brands if patients with limited means are to benefit. What is being hailed as a victory in the struggle for affordable medicines in the country will actually be one only when there is a pro-patient slant to the...

-The Hindu Around 200 survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster held demonstrations in front of the Dow Chemical's office in Vikroli in suburban Mumbai on Tuesday, demanding that the company take up the criminal, civilian and environmental liability of Union Carbide, which they now own. The demonstrators said they were protesting against Dow Chemical's continuing business in hazardous chemicals when the survivors were dying in Bhopal and the next generation was facing...

-The Economic Times Extension of life is priceless. Simply priceless." These were the words of Venkat Krishnan (name changed) to Novartis after receiving treatment with Glivec for about two years. Following his diagnosis with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), Venkat married his college sweetheart against the wishes of her family. After all, the prognosis in those days for people suffering from CML was not promising. Taking interferon, a powerful immune therapy, was the...