1,727 persons have died during drug trials between 2007 and 2010, says public interest petition The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to the Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government in connection with clinical drug trials being conducted across India. This follows a public interest petition filed by an Indore based non-profit, seeking the court's intervention to put a stop to unethical clinical trials. Reports of unethical trials conducted on...

US biotech firm Monsanto had put a variety of genetically modified maize on trial without permission and India's biotech regulatory panel overlooked the violation, according to facts accessed under RTI, a leading anti-GM body has said. Such violations could queer the pitch for the biotech giant and sharpen criticism that it pays scant regards to rules, even though Indian farmers have widely taken to its variety of BT cotton, which has...

-The Times of India   Lanco, the company accused by Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) of illegitimately cornering contracts worth Rs 13,000 crore under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar mission, has objected to the allegations and said "they were not crosschecked with the company and were wrongly perceived".  In a statement made to TOI, A Narasimhan, senior vice-president (corporate communications), said, "Lanco Group has equity participation in few of the companies...

-The Hindustan Times   Delay in payment of wages to workers is the  biggest concern under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on the 6th anniversary of the right to work scheme on Thursday. “We achieved many a success but several challenges still remain. The biggest concern is ensuring timely payment to  workers. Wage delays force the workers to take costly loans to meet their...

Sending a clear message that the 2G spectrum allocation of 2008 is a scam and not the result of a government policy decision, the Supreme Court today quashed the grant of 122 UAS licences and allocation of spectrum to 12 private companies. Even as the trial in the 2G case progresses in a Patiala House trial court in Delhi, a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly held...