-PTI NEW DELHI: Finance Ministry today agreed to dole out a record Rs 100,000 crore towards diesel and cooking fuel subsidy in 2012-13 but wants pricing formula to be changed from current year to cut down the outgo. Finance Ministry, which had previously given out cash subsidy of Rs 55,000 crore, agreed to give Rs 40,000-45,000 crore more to cover for unmet revenue losses on fuel sale in the fiscal year ending...

-The Hindu Kochi: Ten senior CPI(M) leaders including party general secretary Prakash Karat, Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan and Leader of the Opposition V. S. Achuthanandan have approached the High Court of Kerala on Tuesday for quashing the criminal proceedings initiated against them by the Chief Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Thiruvananthapuram. The court had earlier issued summons against the petitioners following a complaint filed by by Neyyattinkara P. Nagaraj, which stated...

-The Hindu A committee comprising farmers' representatives will look at the method of fixing the minimum support price of agricultural commodities. It will suggest if there is a need for the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to re-position itself in the light of the demands from farmers to raise the remunerative price for essential commodities. At its first meeting held here on Thursday, the panel headed by Director of National Centre...

-The Business Standard The Novartis verdict by the Supreme Court emphasised the importance of flexibilities in drug patent laws, in contrast to Western countries which are seeking TRIPS-plus hardening through free-trade agreements As curtains on the six-year-long legal tussle with Swiss drug giant Novartis AG finally came down earlier this month, the Indian government did not waste a second in hailing the Indian patent law which it said was in "full...

-The Hindu Business Line From maker of versions of drugs, India's pharmaceutical industry has turned a top innovator Twenty years ago, Ranbaxy was a home-spun drug-maker. The Indian Patents Act allowed companies to make chemically-similar versions of innovative drugs. Visionaries in the pharmaceutical sector, like Parvinder Singh (Ranbaxy's key architect and member of its promoter family) and Anji Reddy (founder of Dr Reddy's Laboratories), were alive. And the pharmaceutical industry did not have...