-Kafila Guest Statement by Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge (ASEAK) Victory for Students and Access to Knowledge in DU Copyright Case: Corporate Publishers Market ends at the gates of the University In a rare and incredible order today, the Delhi High Court has dismissed the copyright infringement case filed by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor and Francis (Routledge) against Rameshwari Photocopy Shop in Delhi School of Economics...

-The Hindu Health-care workers at the primary level must be given the knowledge and skills to provide NCD and associated risk factor care. Noncommunicable diseases (NCD) such as diabetes, respiratory diseases, cancer and heart diseases are taking a severe toll on public health across the WHO South-East Asia Region. Approximately 8.5 million lives, many of them premature, are lost each year due to NCDs, making them the region’s leading cause of death...

-Frontline Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that the free or regional trade agreements that are being negotiated, which seek to strengthen current patent regimes, are a potential threat to the developing world’s access to life-saving drugs, which it sources mostly from India. WHEN NELSON MANDELA’S GOVERNMENT passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act in 1997 to make medicines more accessible to the poor, 39 big pharmaceutical companies filed law suits in...

-The Hindu Mihir Shah on the importance of an integrated policy for groundwater and surface water Mihir Shah, water policy expert, member of the erstwhile Planning Commission and in recent months head of several committees tasked with reforming India’s water laws, says existing institutions are inadequate to address our water needs. Which is why, he says in an e-mail interview, India needs an overarching water commission. Excerpts: * The proposed National Water Commission...

-TheWire.in/ India Water Portal Nanduwali in east Rajasthan started flowing again when the villagers decided to work with nature and not against it. The river is now lifeline to those settled on her banks. Gajanand Sharma is excited about the monsoon this year. He is building an anicut on the small stream that runs through his farm. “After the rain, the land will be filled with water and then I will sow...