-The Times of India Even as the opposition accused the government of tampering with poverty figures, Planning Commission stuck to its stand that poverty had declined by 7.3% between 2004-05 and 2009-10, a period when the Congress-led UPA has been in power. "You can put whatever poverty line you want, the fact is... the decline in poverty is twice the decline in the previous 11 years," Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh...

India's decision this month to produce Germany-based multinational Bayer's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, in the first use of "compulsory licensing" in South Asia, will save lives but also raises intricate questions. Under the compulsory licensing process, a government can under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules bypass a patent owner's rights after three years and order the manufacture and sale of life-saving medicines at much cheaper cost than by obtaining the medicine from...

-PTI   Planning Commission today faced criticism inside and outside Parliament for its description of poor and resultant fall in people below the poverty line with Opposition parties saying it was making a "dishonest" attempt to conceal reality through "fraudulent" estimates. BJP hit out at the government and the Planning panel for the conclusion that the number of people living below the poverty line has fallen by seven per cent, alleging that the...

According to data released Monday by India’s Planning Commission, the number of people living in absolute poverty in India decreased by 12.5% between 2004-2005 and 2009-2010. India’s official poverty rate stands at 29.8%, or close to 350 million people using 2010 population figures, down from around 37.2% or 400 million previously. The announcement was based on an analysis of data gathered from roughly 100,000 households between July 2009 and June 2010,...

-Reuters   Cheap generic drugs were meant to change the life of Nandakhu Nissar, whose mouth is swollen by a cancerous tumour. But the cashless and hungry 55-year-old sleeps on a pavement staring up at the windows of Mumbai's biggest cancer hospital.  "What is a generic drug?" shrugs Nissar, who has travelled over 1,500 kms (900 miles) from his home in the hope of treatment. "I have borrowed money from friends and relatives...