Today is 20th March and it was this day in 2009 when the new form of Right to Information Act (RTI Act) was enacted in J&K by Omar Abdullah led Government soon after coming to power. Prior to 2009 we had an RTI law passed by PDP Congress coalition Government headed by Mufti Mohammad Syeed in 2004 (J&K RTI Act 2004). The 2004 version of RTI Act was much weaker...

National AIDS Control Programme urged to move beyond medicine-centric approach The government programmes for children suffering from HIV/AIDS should move from medicine-centric approach to include nutrition and preventive care, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has recommended. In its recently released report ‘Rights and entitlements of children affected and infected by HIV/AIDS 2010-11’, the organisation also advocated provisions for issuing BPL cards to children who have lost their...

Compulsory licence can go a long way to ensure access to cheaper drugs In a momentous development, the Indian patent office issued the ever-compulsory licence in a highly contentious pharmaceutical patent case. The decision is a thumping victory for several Patients and health activists who have been fighting what can only be labelled as highly inequitable pricing strategies by multinational drug firms for the past several decades. In August 2011, Natco, an...

-AFP Bayer AG said, on Tuesday, it was mulling ways to challenge a ground-breaking Indian ruling allowing a local firm to produce a vastly cheaper copy of a cancer drug made by the German pharmaceutical giant. The ruling on Monday by India's Controller-General of Patents marked the first time a so-called ‘compulsory licence' for production of a patented drug has been granted in India, known as a global generics drug powerhouse. Evaluating options “We...

The government's decision to bust the price as well as monopoly of Bayer's anti-cancer drug, through the process of compulsory licensing now opens up the field for the generic industry to follow suit and could well pave the way for the availability of cheaper drugs for lifestyle diseases.  More generic companies could invoke the compulsory licensing clause of the Indian Patents Act, following Monday's decision to allow Natco Pharma to sell...