-The Hindu In its latest form, the National Food Security Bill, 2013 promises to address the extreme irony of an ambitious nation holding mountains of food in storage, while masses of its people are undernourished or even starving. The right to food is finally on the threshold of being legislated. Every step taken to widen the coverage of food security schemes is an advance. Yet, the empirical truth is that...
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Rx: Make All Clinical Trial Data Public
-The Economic Times Should drug companies make clinical trials data public? All over the world, drug regulators are increasingly in favour of doing so, much to the discomfort of pharmaceutical companies, and the London-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) is the first mover in this regard. As the journal Nature reports, EMA is likely to do so by next year, at least for some clinical trials data. On April 19, all the...
More »Right to affordable drugs upheld: activists-Aarti Dhar
-The Hindu "The court has recognised the right of patients to access affordable medicines over profits for big pharma companies" It was celebration time for health activists and civil society groups after the Supreme Court delivered its judgment dismissing Swiss multinational company Novartis' appeal for patent for its anti-cancer medicine imatinib mesylate or Gleevec. "We are happy that the apex court has recognised the right of patients to access affordable medicines over profits...
More »SC’s Glivec ruling setback to foreign pharma firms -Vidya Krishnan and CH Unnikrishnan
-Live Mint SC rejects Novartis's patent plea for Glivec, says it does not meet any standard of novelty or inventiveness In a landmark judgement, India's apex court rejected Swiss drug maker Novartis AG's legal challenge aimed at securing a patent for blockbuster anti-cancer drug imatinib mesylate, branded Glivec in the country. The verdict, which is seen as a setback to multinational pharmaceutical companies operating in India, may influence a rash of pending disputes...
More »A shocker: Not a single public toilet in whole of rural Delhi-Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar
-The Hindu It may be hard to believe, but it is true. Anyone travelling the length of the rural belt of Delhi that stretches from Badarpur border in South-East Delhi all the way to Narela in the northern periphery of the city, will not find a public toilet along the way. The reason being: all these years no one constructed any. And while many believe the rural population knows best how...
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