India’s FTAs pip generic drugs production Lot More For Less     * Generic drugs from India play a major role as antiretroviral drugs across the developing world     * A 2010 study says 80% of the medicines used by donor-funded programmes to treat people with HIV were sourced from India     * It’s cut down treatment costs drastically, from $10,000 to $80     * Stronger IP regimes may hamper production of generics *** The right of...

-The Telegraph   Excerpts from the draft of the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011, which was circulated among MLAs on Monday. Whereas it is expedient to provide for taking over of the land covered by the lease granted to Tata Motors Limited for the sole purpose of Small Car Manufacturing project and letters of allotment issued to the Vendors as recommended by Tata Motors Limited in view of non-commissioning and...

"The Earth upon which the sea, and the rivers and waters, upon which food and the tribes of man have arisen, upon which this breathing, moving life exists, shall afford us precedence in drinking." - Prithvi Sukta, Atharva Veda Land is life. It is the basis of livelihoods for peasants and indigenous people across the Third World and is also becoming the most vital asset in the global economy. As the...

Governments can acquire land for “public purpose” while making sure that the displaced are compensated, relocated and rehabilitated. THE violent conflict over land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh and the persisting resistance to land acquisition for the Posco project in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa are merely recent instances that exemplify the growing stand-off between the Indian state and its people centred on land. On the one side are governments (both Central...

Pantoka is a beehive of activity. The spirit of protest in this small hamlet on the India-Nepal border is not a simple case of topical environmental awakening; it is a desperate struggle for life in which more than 1 lakh lives are at stake. Today, the first day of June, the citizens of Bihar's Raxaul sub-division in East Champaran district will stage a massive blockade on National Highway 28A, shutting off...