-The Hindu The Supreme Court order rejecting a plea to grant patent protection for Glivec, a cancer-fighting drug from Novartis, is a landmark. It will greatly strengthen the quest for access to affordable medicines in India. The decision affirms the idea that a patent regime loses its social relevance when a drug is priced beyond the reach of the vast majority of a country's people. That pharmaceutical companies employ high pricing...

-The Business Standard Ashok Gulati in a paper also gave measures to contain the inflation As India's food inflation continues to remain stubbornly high - it was in double digit for the third straight month in February 2013 at 11.38% - a discussion paper floated by eminent agriculture economist and chairman of Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) Ashok Gulati has blamed high fiscal deficit, rising farm wages and global food...

-Reuters Global drugmakers, battered by recent intellectual property decisions in the country, are girding for a landmark court ruling on Monday with broad consequences for their ability to sell lucrative patented medicines in the country. Supreme Court is due to decide on April 1 whether or not Swiss giant Novartis AG's cancer treatment Glivec deserves a patent in the country. "Big Pharma is nervous because nothing has gone in their favour in the...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Turf war between Big Pharma and generic companies, which was largely restricted to exorbitantly priced life-saving drugs for cancer and HIV, is now spilling over to other chronic ailments like diabetes, and threatening to change dynamics of the nearly Rs 70,000 crore Indian pharma market. Triggering a full-blown patent fight with US-based Merck, domestic generic company Glenmark has launched a more affordable version of the multinational's blockbuster...

-The Hindu The Union Cabinet on Tuesday cleared the National Food Security Bill that gives legal entitlement to 67 per cent population (including 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban) for subsidised grains under the Targeted Public Distribution System The Union Cabinet on Tuesday cleared the National Food Security Bill that gives legal entitlement to 67 per cent population (including 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban) for subsidised...