-The Hindustan Times The government has chosen the Ordinance route to put into force several legislative Bills over the past months. Many of these are expected to be tabled in Parliament in the upcoming budget session. HT explains four of them. What is an ordinance? As per Article 123 of the Constitution, when Parliament is not in session, the President has the power to promulgate an Ordinance - which has the same force...

-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...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government may negotiate prices of patented medicines with their manufacturers before allowing pharmaceutical Companies to launch them in India. The move, a first of its kind, is also likely to be applied on patented drugs that are already being sold in the country, an official source said. An inter-ministerial committee, evaluating the mechanism to negotiate prices of patented medicines, has recently sought detailed information about...

-The Hindustan Times At a time when global political and business leaders are discussing at the World Economic Forum in Davos ways to be more socially responsible and reduce social divide, a report says most Indian businesses lag behind in fulfilling their corporate social responsibility (CSR). According to the report published by German development aid agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GiZ) in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs...

-Business Standard Former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh tells Sanjeeb Mukherjee that the Ordinance to amend the land acquisition Act (2013) opens the door for forcible acquisition and undermines the spirit and the substance of the legislation. Edited excerpts: * An oft-repeated argument given by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to justify bringing an Ordinance to amend the land acquisition Act (2013) passed by your government is that many Congress-ruled states...