While ‘data exclusivity’ clauses will not feature in the India-European Union free trade agreement (FTA), the threat posed by the impending deal to the world’s supply of cheap generic drugs is far from over. India’s commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma assured Michel Sidibe, chief of the United Nations joint programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) at a meeting this week that India would reject attempts by pharmaceutical giants to include...
More »SEARCH RESULT
World Population to Hit Seven Billion by October by Thalif Deen
The United Nations commemorates World Population Day next week against the backdrop of an upcoming landmark event: global population hitting the seven billion mark by late October this year. According to current projections, and with some of the world's poorest nations doubling their populations in the next decade, the second milestone will be in 2025: an eight billion population over the next 14 years. Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N....
More »More and more countries using graphic anti-smoking labelling, UN reports
-The United Nations About a billion people, if they wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes, are facing some pretty off-putting and sometimes gruesome graphics on the package cover, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said today, marking the success of its warning campaign. In its third annual report on the global tobacco epidemic, launched today in Montevideo, Uruguay, the agency said more than one billion people in 19 countries...
More »Slavery or Sumangali? Exploitation of Dalit Girls Exposed
Women’s stepping out of their homes to work is often seen as a symbol of empowerment. But what if girls and young women are first lured to work in factories on the false promise of decent wage, comfortable accommodation and payment of a lump sum amount at the end of 3 years contract, and then made to toil for pittance and their labour rights are violated? A report titled: Captured...
More »The new land acquisition law must seek to reduce market distortions and segmentation by Bibek Debroy
Land is contentious. With urbanisation and demand for non-agricultural use, coupled with lack of employment and skills for those in small-holder and subsistence-level agriculture, this is understandable. In western Europe, especially in Britain, and more especially in England, land markets were freed up before the Industrial Revolution and access to education and skills became more broad-based. We haven't introduced reforms that enable people to move out of agriculture, or diversify...
More »