The Supreme Court wanted to know today “what was happening” in the Orissa Maoist hostage crisis. The Centre told the court it had “no idea”, while the Orissa government — the primary respondent in a public interest petition seeking to prevent it from succumbing to the “blackmail tactics” of Maoists — was not represented. A Bench of Justices T S Thakur and Gyan Sudha Misra had posted an urgent hearing of...

Industry reacts with caution to the grant of a compulsory licence to Natco, but cancer patients welcome it and hope for many more. THE first compulsory licence (CL) issued by the Indian patent office, to the local drug manufacturer Natco Pharma Ltd to sell the generic version of Bayer AG's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, has led to varied reactions. The landmark decision has also raised concerns about the outcome of cases...

NOVARTIS has long been suing the Government of India to eliminate or weaken Section 3(d) of the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005, which established strict standards of patentability in order to prevent the ever-greening of patent monopolies on medicines. Although Novartis lost in 2007 its initial efforts to have Section 3(d) declared unconstitutional and violative of international norms for national patent regimes, it has persisted in appealing and re-appealing the denial...

-IANS The Rajasthan High Court Thursday issued show-cause notices to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director and other agency officers on allegations of harassment by a local politician during investigation into the case of missing nurse Bhanwari Devi, a lawyer said. The notices were issued to CBI director, a deputy inspector general of police (DIG), a superintendent of police (SP) and an inspector-rank officer, the lawyer added. Shabhu Singh Khetasar, a former Bharatiya...

The National Green Tribunal's decision to suspend the environmental clearance given to Posco vindicates the project's critics. ON March 30, the Principal Bench of the newly formed National Green Tribunal (NGT) delivered a momentous decision suspending the environmental clearance (EC) given to the South Korean transnational corporation, Posco, to set up an integrated steel plant at Paradip in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district. The former Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam...