-Down to Earth They feel that certain provisions in these agreements cater 'to the business interests of pharmaceutical monopolies', which are making medicines expensive United Nations (UN) experts have raised concern over human rights violation as a result of the ongoing Free Trade Agreement (FTA), including the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). The US-led ongoing TPPA negotiation with Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei, is in the last leg. During...

-Down to Earth US continues to question India’s patent regime in its latest report. The country was kept in the category where unfavorable conditions exist for ‘innovation’ In April, US president Barack Obama wrote a piece in the Time magazine, praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For a few people it might have been a happy moment, but for others it was scary as they tried to read between the lines as to...

-The Indian Express From Greenpeace to a Danish government wing to church-backed NGOs, the government has put 14 foreign donors in the “prior approval” category; any transaction they make through Indian banks will need Home Ministry clearance. Among the allegations against them is that they were funding anti-India activities and clandestinely routing money to Greenpeace India. DENMARK DANIDA: Danish International Development Agency, the humanitarian aid wing of Denmark’s foreign ministry. Dan Church Aid: Funded...

-Kafila.org With depressing regularity, the newspapers have been reporting farmers' suicides in many states. Recently, P Sainath wrote on BBC that around 296,438 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. He also mentions that cash crop cultivators of cotton, sugar cane, vanilla, pepper, groundnut etc account for the bulk of those suicides. According to a PIL heard by the Supreme Court in December 2014, around 3146 farmers in Maharashtra have committed suicide...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Vegetables are the noble folk of food world, loved equally by doctors and grandmothers. Vegetarians live off them and meat-eaters are told to live off them. But in Delhi, under every crunchy leaf of radish or the shiny brinjal hide dangerous amounts of pesticides that can slowly kill, shows a new study by JNU. Pritha Chatterjee and Aniruddha Ghosal report how growers, consumers and the authorities may...