Multinational drug companies appear to have used the Prime Minister’s Office to try and influence government policies that may severely undermine availability of affordable medicines, a group of non-government organisations has said. In a joint letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 50 NGOs said the PMO had asked the ministry of health and the departments of legal affairs and industrial policy to examine intellectual property rights issues raised by foreign pharmaceutical...

The discussion paper on compulsory licensing of patents will have achieved its purpose if it can lead to a proactive policy in the area of drugs and health. IN a proactive move to ensure a fair balance between protection of intellectual property rights and protection of the public interest, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has chosen to put out a discussion...

All 12,800 villages of Punjab are set to get all 14 citizen services under one roof from December this year, with the Rs 91-crore prestigious programme of 3017 e-gram at each Panchayat cluster becoming functional. After going through the presentation by Joint Secretary of Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayat DK Jain as well as the experience cited by service providers and multinational IT companies contending for this prestigious job, Deputy...

The Seed Bill continues to remain stuck in controversy with state governments as well as farmer groups not happy with the current shape of the legislation that the agriculture ministry is keen to introduce in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament. The issue of compensation for farmers in case of failure of seeds and regulation of seed prices has been raised by MPs as well as civil society groups. While...

One in four corporate titans worldwide view biodiversity loss as a threat to their business growth, according to a new United Nations-backed study released today. It found that more than half of chief executive officers surveyed in Latin America and 45 per cent of their counterparts in Africa see biodiversity decline as detrimental to profits, compared to less than 20 per cent in Western Europe. The publication also found that business...