-The Hindu Differences over intellectual property rights (IPRs) have emerged as a strong undercurrent in India's economic relations with the U.S. The attempt by the influential pharmaceutical lobby to stymie India's efforts to ensure the supply of medicines at affordable rates without violating existing treaty commitments, requires a principled response from New Delhi. At the core of the issue is what Columbia University Professor Arvind Panagariya calls "the hijacking of...

-The Business Standard The recent US-India friction over trade is being driven by Big Pharma Apart from the deterioration of the business environment generally, which impacts both domestic and foreign investors, retrospective taxation has figured most prominently in the media as the principal cause of growing scepticism among foreign investors. Entirely missing from the discourse has been an equally potent factor with wholly foreign origins: the hijacking of the economic policy...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The US Chamber of Commerce has advised its government to ratchet up pressure on India over intellectual property rights and prevent it from producing cheap generic versions of medicines under patent protection. In a recommendation to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the chamber requested it to label India as a Priority Foreign Country, a tag which is given to the worst offenders of patent rights. The only...

-The Indian Express In Gujarat, growth relies on indebtedness. And relegates development. The Gujarat pattern of development has often been arraigned from the left because of its social deficits. Indeed, the state's social indicators do not match its economic performance. With 23 per cent of its citizens living below the poverty line in 2010, Gujarat does better than the Indian average - 29.8 per cent - but it reduced this proportion by...

Regulations covering public health should override personal rights and the country cannot wait any more for a good public health law. The health care industry, including institutions of medical education, hospitals and pharmaceutical businesses, have grown into behemoths that can do considerable harm in the absence of independent and effective regulatory systems. While there are no success stories in the regulation of any kind of industry in India, I will focus...