-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation's (WHO) work of setting up norms and standards for production of medicines seems to be flawed by a fundamental conflict of interest. At the heart of its standard setting work is an entity the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) in which majority of the WHO member countries have no voting rights and which is dominated by pharmaceutical industry groups. This glaring...

-The Hindu   No one can attack India's well-founded Intellectual Property regime as being weak merely because a drug that is claimed to be an invention fails the test of law India and its intellectual property (IP) laws have been the subject of sharp criticism recently. Now, there is talk of the government invoking emergency provisions with regard to Dasatinib, a cancer drug. The decibel level may go up several notches. Let us look...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Be it the urinal which saves 1,51,000 litres of water every year and draws out of the excrement phosphorus - a mineral which India imports - or the Rs 120 cholesterol test which otherwise costs Rs 5,800, or even the low-cost cellphone-size hemoglobin meter that must surely be a boon to a country in which an overwhelming proportion of maternal deaths result from malnutrition-triggered anemia,...

-Down to Earth Grand old party of India renews some old promises and makes some new ones, but will Congress live up to its promises if it wins a third term? The Indian National Congress (INC) presented its manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Wedneday. The manifesto committee claimed the 48-page document was prepared after wide consultations by engaging millions of people, grassroots congress workers and every section of the...

-Economic and Political Weekly   What explains the erosion of support for the ruling combine at a time of rising human development indices? Ten years is long enough for an elected government to lose public faith and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has done much, both in acts of omission and commission, to ensure a steady erosion of support among the electorate. Large-scale corruption, the incompetence of the government in handling many important...