What better elixir than pure water? Thanks to Naandi, a safe drinking water programme, 3,90,536 households in rural areas across four Indian states are benefited.  Naandi, headquartered in Hyderabad, is a not-for-profit organization which works with governing bodies in rural areas, including Karnataka, to provide clean drinking water to the poor. So what really is their modus operandi? It is essentially a community-run programme where the local governing body or gram...

-The Hindustan Times The Delhi high court on Friday directed the state government’s education department to fill up the vacant seats for students from the economically weaker section (EWS) during the summer vacations so that they can join after the schools reopen in July.   The order came after the Delhi government informed the court that around 9,835 nursery seats under the EWS category are vacant in 1,186 unaided private schools in 2012-13...

India's efforts to produce and supply life-saving drugs at affordable prices face challenges from multinational companies trying to “evergreen” their patents. THE average life expectancy across the globe has increased from around 30 years a century ago to over 65 years today. This has been made possible in large part by modern medicine. Never before in history have humans had access to such an array of medicines and devices to...

The country is clearly shaping its legislation to promote access to medicines by fostering generic production. INDIA'S approach to the revision of its Patents Act in 2005 is a clear example of a country shaping its legislation to promote access to medicines by fostering generic production. Although World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules made it mandatory for India to put in place a patent regime for medicines by 2005, nothing obliges...

-The Hindu   The Supreme Court on Thursday said “every citizen has a right to establish and administer educational institution[s] under Article 19(1) (g) so long as the activity remains charitable. Such an activity undertaken by the private institutions supplements the primary obligation of the state. Thus, the state can regulate by law the activities of the private institutions by imposing reasonable restrictions under Article 19(6).” A Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia...