-The Times of India The union health ministry's target of distributing 50 drugs free under the free essential drug scheme is so much lower than the hundreds of drugs being provided by states with a functioning free drugs scheme that it has left health officials in these states puzzled. After starting off by talking of distributing 348 drugs in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) during the tenure of Dr Harsh...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: International health activists have joined their Indian counterparts in decrying what they say are Barack Obama's dual policy on big drug companies, pledging to break their stranglehold in the US but promoting their interests in India. The activists claimed yesterday that the India-US joint statement, issued during Obama's visit to India, contains signals that the Indian government could be preparing to weaken its intellectual property regulations on medicines,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Leading US health groups including AVAC, Oxfam America, amfAR, Health Global Access Project (GAP), TAG (Treatment Action Group)and others have written to Barack Obama urging him to support India in providing "high-quality, low-cost generic medicines essential for health care around the world". This comes in the wake of the two nations agreeing to enhance engagement on IPR at the latest bilateral talks. Sunday's joint statement after...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Health and patients' rights groups have called on the government to resist American pressure that they claimed was aimed at weakening safeguards in India's patent laws that allow drug companies to sell inexpensive generic medicine. Health activists representing patients' rights said they were concerned that bilateral talks on intellectual property rights, to feature during US President Barack Obama's visit to India beginning this weekend, may be rigged against...

-Down to Earth US actions jeopardise India's pro-poor patent laws that promote generic drugs production, says online global petition More than 75,000 people have requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to succumb to US pressure on Intellectual Property Rights (IP). With trade and intellectual property rights featuring prominently in the agenda of US president Barak Obama's India visit, civil society groups have expressed concern that talks on these issues are designed to make...