-The Indian Express India is no insecure dictatorship junking international obligations for cheap populism. The highest court of the world's largest democracy has made a nuanced distinction between real innovation and marketing gimmickry. Yet, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis's response to the recent Supreme Court verdict in Novartis vs Union of India has been imperial in tone. The judgment "discourages innovative drug discovery", it claimed. It accused Indian law of lagging...

-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...

-The Hindu "Animal behaviour," was the unusual language the Supreme Court deployed recently. The context for the cryptic remarks was the gruesome lathi-charge on protesting teachers, predominantly women, engaged on contract by the Bihar government, and the attacks on a woman who sought police intervention in a case of assault. The police carry a long and ignominious record of resort to indiscriminate force to quell peaceful protesters, which peaked in the...

-The Times of India "We are sitting on a plastic time bomb," the Supreme Court said on Wednesday after the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) informed it that India generates 56 lakhtonnes of plastic waste annually, with Delhi accounting for a staggering 689.5 tonnes a day. "Total plastic waste which is collected and recycled in the country is estimated to be 9,205 tonnes per day (approximately 60% of total plastic waste) and...

-The Indian Express Sonepat: Dharampal, the Haryana rape convict who was released on parole and went on to murder five members of the victim's family, is set to be hanged next week. President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected his mercy petition, pending for 14 years. Initially accused of raping a girl in Sonepat in 1991, Dharampal was given a 10-year jail sentence in 1993. He had allegedly threatened the girl against deposing in...