Industry reacts with caution to the grant of a compulsory licence to Natco, but cancer patients welcome it and hope for many more. THE first compulsory licence (CL) issued by the Indian patent office, to the local drug manufacturer Natco Pharma Ltd to sell the generic version of Bayer AG's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, has led to varied reactions. The landmark decision has also raised concerns about the outcome of cases...
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Cash if couple delay first child-Ananya Sengupta
This is for you, newly-weds. If you delay that little parcel of joy by over two years, another parcel is yours. A crisp parcel of notes. According to a scheme to be launched under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the government will reward newly-weds with a cash prize of Rs 500 if they don’t have children in the first two years of their marriage. That’s not all. If they want, a couple can...
More »Ending hunger critical to ensuring development that is sustainable – UN official
-The United Nations The world must tackle the urgent challenge of ending hunger if it is to ensure a model of development that is sustainable over the long term, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stressed today. “We cannot call development sustainable if we are leaving almost one in every seven people behind, victims of undernourishment,” Director-General José Graziano da Silva told participants at FAO’s biennial regional...
More »Flagships adrift -Jayati Ghosh
The ICDS' plight is symptomatic of the problems plaguing the Union government's flagship schemes for the poor all over the country. INDIA may be the only country in the world where we describe the ensuring of the basic socio-economic rights of the people in terms of “flagship schemes” that are seen as the benevolent contribution of governments. One problem with this approach is that the delivery of basic services is...
More »Farm revolution: Indian farmers finally embrace mechanisation
-Reuters PERLE: As a shiny red harvester bounces across the black earth into the first row of sugar cane, excited schoolchildren run after it and several dozen men stand gaping in the wake of its swift progress. It's the first time that Perle, a village on the banks of the Krishna river in Maharashtra state, has seen a machine used for cutting the tough cane. "This machine will harvest my entire field today,"...
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