-The Times of India GUWAHATI: Hundreds of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) activists were prevented by police from staging a demonstration in the Golaghat district on Saturday. KMSS claimed that four of their members were injured when police used force to stop their procession, which was heading towards the sub-division office. The activists were also detained. "We were about 300 people in the procession. We planned the protest after the district Administration...

-The Hindustan Times   Helicopters were kept on standby for casualty evacuation; targets were chosen with care after studying satellite images and the troops were warned — the encounters would be fierce and the naxals could be in the hundreds, even thousands. After weeks of planning, security forces armed with automatic rifles, satellite phones and Swedish Carl Gustav rocket launchers made their very first foray into the dense Abujhmad jungle, straddling the...

India's efforts to produce and supply life-saving drugs at affordable prices face challenges from multinational companies trying to “evergreen” their patents. THE average life expectancy across the globe has increased from around 30 years a century ago to over 65 years today. This has been made possible in large part by modern medicine. Never before in history have humans had access to such an array of medicines and devices to...

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...

The country is clearly shaping its legislation to promote access to medicines by fostering generic production. INDIA'S approach to the revision of its Patents Act in 2005 is a clear example of a country shaping its legislation to promote access to medicines by fostering generic production. Although World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules made it mandatory for India to put in place a patent regime for medicines by 2005, nothing obliges...