-The Hindu Differences over intellectual property rights (IPRs) have emerged as a strong undercurrent in India's economic relations with the U.S. The attempt by the influential pharmaceutical lobby to stymie India's efforts to ensure the supply of medicines at affordable rates without violating existing treaty commitments, requires a principled response from New Delhi. At the core of the issue is what Columbia University Professor Arvind Panagariya calls "the hijacking of...

-Down to Earth Giving patents to foreign-made medicines will add to patients' woes, they urge Health activists staged a protest in front of the office of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday, demanding that the government should ensure that oral drugs to treat Hepatitis C are made available to patients. The demonstrators were later assured by the ministry officials that they would look into the matter...

-The Business Standard The Congress party's suggested right to health, if implemented, would be a game-changer This is the season for party manifestos with their vague and quite unexciting promises. But in this sea of platitudes, sometimes something stands out that is worth talking about, because, if implemented, it would be a game-changer. For me this is the reported inclusion of the right to health in the Congress party's manifesto. It is well...

-Down to Earth Nearly 83 per cent medicines out of the ambit of price control policy, thus making them out of reach for most patients, say two recent reports Indicating failure of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy (NPPP), 2012 and the Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO), 2013, two recently-released reports have stated that medicines are still not accessible and affordable for the citizens of the country. The reports that were jointly released...

-IPS News PESHAWAR, Pakistan- They are contraband, yet a large number of Pakistanis have come to depend on drugs made in India and smuggled into Pakistan. Patients as well as doctors say these are cheap and effective, even as law enforcers look the other way. The two countries do not have a trade agreement on drugs, but markets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north of Pakistan do brisk business in India-made...