The ongoing debate over the incidence of poverty in India, often assuming surreal proportions, shows that there is indeed a ‘philosophy of poverty’ guiding current economic reforms. The loot of our country’s resources that is taking place both through these reforms, which continue to widen gross inequalities, and through the open plunder of our resources for private gain — as reflected in the series of mega scams — require the legitimacy...

-PTI Senior IAS officers Pradeep Vyas and Jairaj Phatak have been placed under suspension pending investigation in the Adarsh Housing Society scam, Maharashtra government informed the Bombay high court on Thursday. While Vyas was the collector of Mumbai, Phatak was city municipal commissioner when the scam took place. According to the CBI, Vyas (49), during his tenure as Collector from August 2002 to May 2005, allegedly connived with other accused and...

Poor utilization of funds and irregular disbursals have been cited as the reasons for India’s school education system failing to show desired improvement even as the government has more than doubled funds for education programmes in the past two years. The government has spent just 70% of the funds allocated for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (education for all) and Right to Education in 2010-11 compared with 78% in the year earlier, according...

India's decision this month to produce Germany-based multinational Bayer's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, in the first use of "compulsory licensing" in South Asia, will save lives but also raises intricate questions. Under the compulsory licensing process, a government can under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules bypass a patent owner's rights after three years and order the manufacture and sale of life-saving medicines at much cheaper cost than by obtaining the medicine from...

-Reuters   Cheap generic drugs were meant to change the life of Nandakhu Nissar, whose mouth is swollen by a cancerous tumour. But the cashless and hungry 55-year-old sleeps on a pavement staring up at the windows of Mumbai's biggest cancer hospital.  "What is a generic drug?" shrugs Nissar, who has travelled over 1,500 kms (900 miles) from his home in the hope of treatment. "I have borrowed money from friends and relatives...