-Frontline   The Supreme Court's ruling against Novartis' patent claim for the cancer drug Glivec paves the way for generic drug companies to keep crucial, life-saving drugs affordable to the common people. By V. VENKATESAN IN their 112-page judgment delivered on April 1, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai of the Supreme Court began with a simple proposition: in order to understand what the law really is, it is essential to...

-The Business Standard Says licence terms extended to 15 years on advice of erstwhile Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India, a lender to many telcos Giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the 2G spectrum allocation case in 2008, the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that looked into telecom spectrum allocations has turned the heat on the numerous decisions taken in the sector between 1998 and 2004, during...

-Live Mint Government reaches near consensus as BJP agrees to support Bill in Parliament; industry not enthused by plan The government may be close to pulling off one of India's most significant policy changes with a near consensus among political parties on a new land acquisition law, taking the country to the verge of removing what's perceived as the biggest impediment to the next wave of industrialization. At the conclusion of an all-party...

-The Times of India With over 16 activists killed and thousands under attack or threatened, RTI activists have demanded a stronger whistleblower law, including provisions for accountability and compensation for victims. The Whistleblowers Protection Bill is likely to come up in Parliament in the budget session starting next week. But activists feel that the Bill in its present form is not strong enough to prevent deaths. National Campaign for People's Right to...

-The Times of India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been given a clean chit by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on telecom which rubbished CAG's Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss calculations in the 2G scam but slammed the Vajpayee government for Rs 40,080 crore loss due to a policy shift in 1999. The committee - headed by Congress MP P C Chacko - in its draft report pinned the 2G blame on former...