-TheWire.in Statistical analysis suggests that farmers in states that have amended the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act are less likely to commit suicide, but further reforms are needed to reduce the incidence of farmer suicides across the country. Every summer, it is the same old story: drought and farmers committing suicide in India. Between 2012 and 2015, over 10,000 farmers killed themselves. Farmer suicides are a major cause of political contention, despite...

-Business Standard To make medicines cheaper, in another measure, govt added 200 drug formulations to NLEM list New Delhi/ Mumbai: Pharma companies may soon start wooing chemists as the Narendra Modi government plans to make it mandatory for doctors to prescribe pure-generic drugs, instead of branded generics as they do now. Though the plan was first announced in this year’s Budget, the prime minister spoke about it for the first time at a...

-The Economic Times Chandigarh: Cotton, often termed by farmers as 'white gold' for bringing higher remuneration, is set to regain lost ground in Punjab where the area under the crop is expected to rise by more than 50 per cent after it fell to ever lowest 2.56 lakh hectares in the last year. The revival of the fibre crop is buttressed by highest productivity of 756 lint kg per hectare in...

-The Indian Express Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants doctors to prescribe generic medicines over branded ones. KAUNAIN SHERIFF M answers key questions on the pricing of drugs and beyond. * What exactly has Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on generic drugs? Speaking in Surat on April 17, the Prime Minister referred to the Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), which aims to provide cheaper medical drugs to the people. “In the coming days,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Regulatory efforts to get doctors in India to prescribe medicines only through their generic names, initiated about 15 years ago, will need to overcome legal challenges and resistance from sections of doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, experts said. Senior pharmacologists and industry analysts have also said it will be misleading to presume that prescriptions with generic names will automatically translate into lower medicine bills for patients as studies...