India is coming under increasing pressure from the U.S. and the European Union for the strict patentability criteria it applies for medicines. AS was only to be expected, the two landmark decisions made by the Indian patent office in recent times concerning pharmaceutical patent cases have not gone down well with the multinational drug industry. First, there was the rejection in 2006 of the patent application by the Swiss multinational...

-Reuters The Indian government has no plans to buy farmland abroad or help private companies do so, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said on Monday, after a local media report said New Delhi was debating the issue. “There is no government proposal. The ministry has not taken up this proposal,” Pawar told reporters. The Economic Times had in its Monday edition quoted the ministry’s top civil servant, farm secretary P K Basu, saying it...

-The Times of India The CBI is examining a complaint from the ministry of external affairs that gifts bought by the ministry to be given to foreign dignitaries were allegedly purchased at inflated costs by circumventing rules. Agency sources said they were examining the complaint. "We have not registered any preliminary enquiry (PE) or a regular case (RC) in the matter yet," a CBI officer said.  The MEA had sent the request...

-PTI   The Enforcement Directorate has registered a money laundering case against former Union minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother Kalanidhi in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation case. The case, registered on Tuesday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), pertains to an alleged illegal gratification of about Rs 550 crore allegedly received by the Maran brothers in the Aircel-Maxis deal. Maran, a former Union telecom minister, had quit from the...

If the combined Opposition had sat down for weeks so as to find an issue to embarrass the UPA Government and make it a laughing stock before the whole country, they could not have thought of a better issue than the free gift presented to it by the UPA Government by initially insisting that it had irrevocably decided to allow the entry of multi-brand retail leader superstores like Walmart, USA...