-Reuters India's move to strip German drugmaker Bayer of its exclusive rights to a cancer drug has set a precedent that could extend to other treatments, including modern HIV/AIDS drugs, in a major blow to global pharmaceutical firms, experts say.  On Monday, the Indian Patent Office effectively ended Bayer's monopoly for its Nexavar drug and issued its first-ever compulsory license allowing local generic maker Natco Pharma to make and sell the drug...

As non-governmental organisations question the relevance of the World Water Forum being held here this week and slam its "corporate" nature, the United Nations says that a coordinated approach to managing and allocating water is critical. The fourth edition of the triennial World Water Development Report (WWDR), which brings together the work of 28 U.N.-Water members and partners is being officially launched Monday at the Forum. It stresses that water "underpins...

-The Hindu   Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister of India March 12, 2012 Dear Prime Minister, We welcome the tabling of a National Food Security Bill in the Lok Sabha as an important step towards the elimination of hunger and undernutrition in India. However, we feel that the Bill in its current form has some serious shortcomings. We are writing to propose a simpler and more effective framework for the Public Distribution System (PDS), which requires...

-AFP Water problems in many parts of the world are chronic and without a crackdown on waste will worsen as demand for food rises and climate change intensifies, the UN warned on Sunday.  Issued on the eve of a six-day gathering on world water issues, the United Nations, in a massive report, said many daunting challenges lie ahead.  They include providing clean water and sanitation to the poor, feeding a world population set...

Warnings have, by and large, been discarded perhaps ever since the forbidden apple was eaten. So is the fate of the warning from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown almost on the ides of March last year, on March 11, 2011 to be precise. Nuclear apologists who earlier professed that lessons had been learnt from Chernobyl and that design modifications had been made in reactors to avert another accident are now brushing...