-PTI Stoking controversy, the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal banned English and mass-circulation Bengali dailies at state-sponsored and Aided libraries but in a damage-control exercise late tonight sAid the order was being changed to include more newspapers.  The order by the state government evoked criticism from Trinamool ally Congress, Left parties and the intelligentsia which sAid the decision was "undemocratic, undesirable and worse than censorship." A demand for withdrawal of the...

-Express News Service Protests erupted across the state, but the Trinamool Congress government stood firm on its circular on the newspapers that readers of all government libraries should read.   “There is no question of withdrawing the circular. Every government has its own policy and the circular was prepared in accordance with government rules and policies. I knew about it. The chief minister also knew it before it was issued,’’ Abdul Karim Choudhury,...

Source: PTI/IANS The World Bank has announced $4.3 billion in financial Aid to India through a new innovative and flexible financing arrangement to help the country fight poverty. The arrangement, while facilitating a $4.3 billion increase in support to India, is designed to maintain International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's -- which is its lending arm -- net exposure within the limit of $17.5 billion established by it. In a statement, the World...

India's HIV control programme could soon get merged with the country's flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), if the Planning Commission has its way. The Commission's steering committee on health for the 12th five-year Plan has proposed "incorporating AidS control, universal healthcare and universal access to essential medicines" into NRHM. Planning Commission member in-charge of health Syeda Hameed sAid, "It is a serious recommendation to incorporate NACO under an overall National Health...

-Economic and Political Weekly The compulsory licence for Nexavar is only the beginning of a new battle over drug prices. The grant of a compulsory licence (CL) to Natco Pharma, a relatively small Indian pharmaceutical company, to manufacture and sell the cancer drug sorafenib (Nexavar) has been rightly hailed as a major step forward for public health and the wider availability of life saving medicines.   The German pharmaceutical company Bayer holds the patent...