-The Hindu Well before the Supreme Court rejected Novartis' application for patent for Glivec (Gleevec in the U.S.), drawing attention to the dichotomy of generic and patented drugs, activists have been demanding access to expensive drugs used in the treatment of cancer, hepatitis C and serious HIV. Trastuzumab is one such, used in the treatment of HER2+ type of breast cancer, which affects about one in four patients with the disease. Rough...

-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...

-Live Mint Reimbursing schools that reserve 25% seats for underprivileged children may end up costing the govt about Rs.16,000 cr The central government is faced with the prospect of a large bill to pay for the implementation of one of the key elements of the right to education (RTE) legislation-reimbursing private schools that reserved 25% of their seats for underprivileged children-even as the 31 March deadline for most of the law's other...

-PTI State tweaked rules to grant land to Ford and L&T, says report The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has come down heavily on the Gujarat government and State public sector undertakings for causing a loss of nearly Rs. 580 crore to the exchequer by bestowing "undue" favours on large corporate entities. Major industrial houses to which the Narendra Modi government played benefactor included Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Essar Steel and Adani Power...

-Live Mint CERC calls for a variable ‘compensatory tariff' to be offered to Adani Power till fuel situation stabilizes In an unprecedented move, India's apex power sector regulator offered a bailout package to Adani Power Ltd in a late Tuesday order to offset losses on account of the unexpected increase in the prices of imported coal and the unavailability of domestic coal for the company's 4,620 megawatts (MW) thermal power project at...