-Economic and Political Weekly The Supreme Court judgment on the Novartis-Glivec case is remarkable because it has gone beyond the specific technical and legal issues surrounding patents and has put the matter in a much larger political and economic perspective. The deeper implication of the judgment is that it is not only justified to deny patents when incremental innovation is trivial as in the Glivec case. The judgment has linked the...

-The Hindu The CBI's formal acknowledgment to the Supreme Court that, on the demand of Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, it shared the status report of its investigations on the Coalgate scam with bureaucrats in the PMO and Coal Ministry shows how deeply the agency stands compromised. The fact that the CBI Director has now assured the court that the bureau's future status reports "shall not be shared with any [member...

-PTI The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the chief secretaries of Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Goa to file their affidavits on compliance of its directions on police reforms and constituting state security commission (SSC). A bench headed by Justice GS Singhvi directed the chief secretaries to respond when the SSC was constituted and how many sittings had taken place and directed them to provide the minutes of the...

-The Indian Express Bangalore: When affidavits were filed by the contestants for the 2008 assembly polls declaring their wealth, it was a close race between the two dominant money-spinning sectors in Karnataka - real estate and iron ore mining. affidavits filed by 5,376 candidates in the fray for the May 5 assembly polls show that the real estate sector that flourishes in and around Bangalore and, to a lesser extent, around cities...

-The Hindu   The paid news case is no longer just about Ashok Chavan. It concerns every individual and institution opposed to the sway of money power in elections Politicians everywhere are known to indulge in doublespeak and our politicians are no exception. But some recent pronouncements of our Law Minister only show that our politicians may have very few serious rivals in this sport. Not long ago, the Minister was all praise...