-Down to Earth India has complained about subsidies and domestic content requirements in eight US states which favour American companies over imports Earlier this year, the US won a major case against India at the World Trade Organization (WTO). It had complained that the domestic content requirements (DCR) in India’s solar mission favoured Indian manufacturers, violating trade agreements signed by both parties. Now, India has complained to the WTO on similar grounds....

-The Hindu MSF Secretary General Jerome Oberreit on the increasing threat to affordable health care worldwide. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors without Borders, the international humanitarian medical aid organisation that is active in 69 countries, serves populations affected by epidemics, armed conflicts, natural calamities and manmade disasters. MSF has relied heavily on generic drugs, much of which has been sourced from India, to deliver health care to some of the most...

-Frontline Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that the free or regional trade agreements that are being negotiated, which seek to strengthen current patent regimes, are a potential threat to the developing world’s access to life-saving drugs, which it sources mostly from India. WHEN NELSON MANDELA’S GOVERNMENT passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act in 1997 to make medicines more accessible to the poor, 39 big pharmaceutical companies filed law suits in...

-Frontline The inability to resolve pressing problems with respect to the production, distribution and availability of food is one of the important failures of the entire economic reform process. IN the fateful month of July 1991, when the devaluation of the Indian rupee presaged the introduction of a whole series of liberalising economic reforms, agriculture was very far from the minds of most policymakers and commentators. The immediate focus was on...

-The Hindu Business Line India has eased entry barriers after losing WTO case to the US Chennai/ Hyderabad: As dumping of chicken legs by the US becomes imminent after India lost the case at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Rs. 50,000-crore domestic poultry industry proposes to approach the Centre seeking protection of its interests. “There is no level playing field. We are planning to ask the government to either ban import of...