-The Business Standard Drugs are unaffordable, but price control is the wrong answer There is little doubt that medicines in India are too expensive for most of the population. For the poorest 20 per cent of Indians, the expenditure on medicines alone is 85 per cent of what they spend on their health, according to the National Sample Survey. A World Bank study on the subject found that just out-of-pocket medical costs...

-Reuters BRUSSELS: Nine drugmakers, including Denmark's Lundbeck and India's Ranbaxy, were fined a total of 146 million euros by EU antitrust regulators on Wednesday for blocking the supply of a cheaper anti-depressant medicine to the market. The punishments follow a 2009 report by the European Commission on the pharmaceutical sector, which said "pay-for-delay" deals lead to consumers paying as much as 20 percent more for their medicines. The EU action came two days...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: The forests and environment department has started a plantation audit to find out the survival rate of saplings planted over the years within the city limits. A total of 9,67,362 saplings were planted in past three years but no one knows the survival rate of the saplings. Forest officials say a survival rate of 70 to 75 per cent is a healthy sign for any plantation drive. But the numbers...

-Live Mint The fundamental pathology of Indian policy is the overwhelming preference for subsidies over public goods One useful way to understand a fundamental flaw in policymaking in India since 2004 is to ask a rhetorical question: why is the ruling United Progressive Alliance aggressively pushing for a law guaranteeing the right to food rather than one for the right to clean drinking water? Take a look at the numbers. A February...

-The Hindu As India's parliamentarians continue to disrupt Parliament or the so-called "Temple of Democracy", the much anticipated National Food Security Bill (NFSB) has been put on the back burner. Consequently, millions of Indian will continue to sleep on empty stomach, tossing and turning all night dreaming for the day when eating food will not be a luxury anymore. Ironically, India presents a unique case of a country that, on the...