-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...
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With police help, banned Naxal group takes on Maoists in Jharkhand -Deepu Sebastian Edmond
-The Indian Express As coming-of-age rituals go, the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (TSPC) couldn't have planned it better. Acting on intelligence by its cadre, it moved in on a group of Maoists in Chatra district's Lawalong Tola on the intervening night of March 27-28, killing 10. Among the dead was Lalesh Yadav, secretary of the Bihar-Jharkhand-North Chhattisgarh Special Area Committee, and his closest subordinates, thus leaving a vacuum at the heart...
More »The latest attacks on Haryana's dalits show up the state's failure to protect weaker sections
-The Times of India Several laws have been enacted and commissions set up for the protection of scheduled castes and tribes. Yet violence and discrimination against underprivileged communities go on with impunity. The latest in the long list of such incidents took place in Haryana, where over 200 dalit families were forced to migrate from Pabnawa village following attacks on them by upper caste Ror community members. The reason for...
More »Finally, the patients prevail -Sarah Hiddleston
-The Hindu The Supreme Court has denied Novartis a patent for its anti-cancer drug Gleevec. This leaves the door open for Indian pharmaceutical companies to produce their own versions of the drug. Since these are sold at roughly one tenth of the patented brand price, for thousands of cancer patients it means the difference between medicine and no medicine at all. It is not just cancer patients that will benefit, but...
More »EU, Australia, Canada may follow India’s Patent Law -Divya Rajagopal
-The Economic Times MUMBAI: India's strong stance on minor drug innovations could reverberate in national parliaments and courthouses of the developed world as Australia, the EU and Canada get ready to discuss and ban patent protection for frivolous improvements. A top Australian government body on Wednesday asked for changes in its patent laws relating to drugs saying that the indiscriminate grant of patents to incremental innovations should be checked and that...
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