-The Times of India MUMBAI: Turf war between Big Pharma and generic companies, which was largely restricted to exorbitantly priced life-saving drugs for cancer and HIV, is now spilling over to other chronic ailments like diabetes, and threatening to change dynamics of the nearly Rs 70,000 crore Indian pharma market. Triggering a full-blown patent fight with US-based Merck, domestic generic company Glenmark has launched a more affordable version of the multinational's blockbuster...

-The United Nations The rapid growth of developing countries is propelling millions out of poverty on an unprecedented scale and radically reshaping the global system, according to a flagship United Nations report launched today. “The rise of the South is unprecedented in its speed and scale,” says the Human Development Report 2013, which uses the term “South” to mean developing countries and “North” to mean developed nations. “Never in history have the...

-The Hindu Despite government programmes, nutrition supplements for women and children are not to be found in Jharkhand’s villages More than two years after she gave birth to her youngest daughter, Shanti Oraon, an adivasi farmer in Bhandara village, Khunti district has been unable to resume working in the fields. “She has breathing trouble, and could not start walking even after she turned two and a half years old. I must stay...

-Business Today What does the proposed food security law mean for the government's finances? Most days, around half a dozen middleaged men in Tamil Nadu's Nemam village head for a slushy pond. They are farm labourers who have had little work for the past few months because of a drought in their Tiruvarur district. As an alternative they catch fish, but the income from it is not enough to survive on. "But...

-The Hindu India’s drug price control order, which is vital to the availability of affordable essential medicines, has been whittled down to the point of becoming insignificant. While the number of price-controlled medicines has dwindled over the past three decades, from 347 to 74, the pharmaceutical industry has been pursuing super profits. The High Level Expert Group of the Planning Commission on Universal Health Coverage noted in its report that price...