-PTI German pharma major Bayer has charged that Indian generic drugmaker Cipla had breached its patent rights by slashing the price of a generic version of its patent-protected cancer drug Nexavar last week. Bayer Pharma has not given its consent to Cipla to launch its generic Sorafenib (sold under the brand name Nexavar) and the company’s decision to cut the price of the life-extending kidney and liver cancer drug “is a clear...

A report by a parliamentary committee has shown that the drug industry regulator, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), has been approving, on average, one new drug a month without conducting mandatory clinical trials or seeking expert medical opinion—findings that expose the deep flaws prevalent in India’s drug approval process. The committee has asked the health ministry to withdraw the discretionary powers given to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization...

-Down to Earth Biometric-based unique identity or Aadhaar is leading to huge problems for people working for the rural employment guarantee scheme and for others receiving welfare benefits. Not only have enrolments been done shoddily but the experience of the pilot projects shows that it is almost impossible to authenticate the work-hardened fingerprints of the poor, find Latha Jishnu and Jyotika Sood. Besides, there is the overwhelming issue of deficient online...

It has been a slow but steady move to make scholarship freely available Most of us spend a few hundred rupees a year on the magazines we buy for leisure reading or for keeping abreast of current affairs. But if you are a scientist, you may be shelling out a few thousand rupees for the journal your professional society publishes for its members. Of course, if you are a serious researcher,...

A survey of 71 cities across the country conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has shown that officially 82 per cent of all the water that municipalities of these cities supply comes from surface water resources, and the rest comes from groundwater resources. But of these 71 cities, 11 depend almost completely on groundwater for public water supply. In the remaining, agencies supply water from surface sources by...