-The Economic Times The government is reviewing the norms for keeping buffer stocks of wheat and rice required at a particular time of the year to feed the public distribution system and welfare schemes. The demand for wheat and rice distributed through welfare schemes is expected to rise with the implementation of the food security law. "The government is looking at the issue and we are discussing it with different departments," KV Thomas,...

-The Business Standard A CACP study shows how the Fisc, rising farm wages and international forces are stoking inflation It's good to see that independent thought is still present in the government. When one part of the government comes out with a serious and objective piece on how the government itself has been responsible for creating food inflation, hopefully the government is more likely to take note. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and...

-The Hindu     Drug patents are designed to create profits that enable more research on diseases affecting millions. But in practice, they have often generated super profits for big pharma companies while erecting access barriers for the poor. The Novartis case spotlights much that is wrong with the system. The rejection of the Novartis petition challenging one of the most progressive tenets of the Indian Patents Act (1970), as amended in 2005 by...

-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...

-The Times of India PATNA: The Bihar government, which keeps crying for more central assistance, could not spend Rs 1472.61 crore in 2012 and surrendered 100 per cent funds in 192 schemes, depriving the beneficiaries of the benefits, according to the CAG report for 2011-12 presented in state assembly on Tuesday. Central funds for several schemes also remained unutilized, it said. The CAG also regretted the lack of objective planning in utilization...