-The Hindu In 2014, an Indian Pharmaceutical company was globally the first to receive approval to market a biosimilar, thereby affordable version, of the breast cancer drug Trastuzumab. Almost immediately, Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, innovator of the drug, filed a suit against the Indian Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to block its sale. The action firmly put their profits ahead of the lives of women with breast cancer. Roche effectively embroiled India’s...

-The Hindu Business Line Superfood moringa is proving to be a boon for subsistence farmers Names like PKM 2, Bhagya KDM 1, Rohit 1, Siddhi Vinayaka.... may not ring a bell among urban readers, but those engaged in subsistence farming will recognise these as the high-yielding varieties of Moringa olifera (drumstick tree). This tree (called murungae in Tamil) has been around for ages, but ever since the world at large claimed moringa as...

-The Hindu Kalyanrao Jalji has cultivated carom seeds in drought-prone Chittapur taluk of Kalaburagi district Karnataka: When disturbing stories of agrarian crisis caused by drought were coming from across the State, Kalyanrao Jalji, a progressive farmer from Gotur village in drought-prone Chittapur taluk in Kalaburagi district, was making handsome profit. Cultivation of carom seeds (ajwain), a spice widely used in Indian kitchens for preparing delicacies as well as in pharmaceutical companies for...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Faculty and scholars from some of India's leading science and engineering institutions have published academic papers in so-called "predatory journals" - online publications that accept poor-quality papers without adequate peer review, an analysis has found. The finding reflects what some scientists say is a lack of institutional initiatives to curb poor-quality or junk research. The analysis of 3,300 academic papers from India in predatory journals has found that while...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A health consortium today questioned a decision by Delhi High Court earlier this week to quash the Centre's ban on 344 cocktails of two or more medicines and urged doctors across the country to stop prescribing them. The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), the Indian section of the global People's Health Movement, said it was shocked at the judgment because there was "no scientific rationale" for the continued use...