-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 Guardian Had Novartis won, it would have set a precedent for patenting of other medicines in India, delaying their reaching the poor   The battle for affordable, life-saving medicines for poor countries was once waged on first-world city streets with banners and placards. But for some years now it has been a long-hard legal slog in offices and courtrooms. A decade or so ago, it was mostly about access to Aids drugs. Firms...

-The Business Standard Interview with Founder chairman of Cancer Patients Aid Association Though the legal battle over Glivec's patentability may be over for now, Y K Sapru, the man spearheading the fight against Swiss multinational Novartis, isn't resting. Sapru, founder chairman of Cancer Patients Aid Association, or CPAA (which moved the Supreme Court to keep the prices of the cancer drug low), tells Sushmi Dey what the judgment means to cancer patients....

-The Business Standard Now, local firms can sell their low-priced generic version of the drug in India and export it to developing markets, where it is not patented Domestic drug firms such as Cipla, Natco, Ranbaxy and Hetero are a happier lot following the Supreme Court verdict on Monday, dismissing Novartis AG's patent plea for anti-cancer drug imatinib mesylate or Glivec, as sold by the Swiss drug maker. This is because the judgement...

-The Economic Times Foreign pharma companies could be forced to overhaul their strategy for the Indian market by striking more local deals and cutting sky-high drug prices after the Supreme Court slammed the door on Swiss giant Novartis' attempts to gain a patent for its blood cancer-busting drug Glivec. But the ruling, welcomed by activists campaigning for affordable drugs and local generic companies, threatened to reinforce a narrative that India...