India joins global drug discovery league The launch by Ranbaxy last week of Synriam, a new drug to treat malaria, is an important milestone. Having made its name by manufacturing generic (off patent) drugs cheaply, India’s pharmaceutical industry has struggled to achieve original drug discovery since the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations signalled the onset of product patents in India. It began to be realised, in time, that there was...

-The Telegraph An Indian pharmaceutical company has tweaked and tested a synthetic molecule first created in an American university and developed the world's latest drug against malaria, an alternative to standard anti-malarial therapy. India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories today launched the new drug for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, after nine years of research which was partly supported by the Indian government. Clinical trials in India, Tanzania, and Thailand...

BHOPAL: In the midst of a hostage crisis, Chhattisgarh government has proposed names of two retired IAS officers S K Mishra and Mrs Nirmala Buch as mediators to negotiate with the Maoists for the safe release of Sukma district collector Alex Paul Menon, who is in rebel captivity since April 21.  Chief Minister Raman Singh told reporters in Raipur "We have proposed the names of Mishra and Mrs Buch as mediators....

-The Hindu The Bachelor of Rural Health Care course seeks to create a separate cadre of public health professionals to serve in rural areas   Any doctor travelling to the United States for higher medical studies from this year onwards will have to sign a bond with the government, promising to return to India after completing his/her studies. This has been done to prevent doctors from leaving the country on the pretext of higher...

-The Hindustan Times   Helicopters were kept on standby for casualty evacuation; targets were chosen with care after studying satellite images and the troops were warned — the encounters would be fierce and the naxals could be in the hundreds, even thousands. After weeks of planning, security forces armed with automatic rifles, satellite phones and Swedish Carl Gustav rocket launchers made their very first foray into the dense Abujhmad jungle, straddling the...