-The Hindu Business Line Draft guidelines coming soon for comments from stakeholders New Delhi: With the debate on genetically modified (GM) crops getting intense, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is considering the option of putting in place guidelines for socio-economic assessment to judge proposed GM varieties on the basis of factors such as economy, Health, environment, society and culture. “Guidelines on socio-economic considerations will make it easier for the Genetic Engineering...

-Frontline Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that the free or regional trade agreements that are being negotiated, which seek to strengthen current patent regimes, are a potential threat to the developing world’s access to life-saving drugs, which it sources mostly from India. WHEN NELSON MANDELA’S GOVERNMENT passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act in 1997 to make medicines more accessible to the poor, 39 big pharmaceutical companies filed law suits in...

-The Times of India Mumbai: In an audit of 11 leading private charitable hospitals in the city, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has found that seven were wrongly billing poor patients and charging hefty deposits during admission. Most hospitals reserved less than the stipulated number of beds for the poor, thereby depriving many of quality Healthcare. The charity commissioner too has been pulled up for bad implementation of...

-The Hindu Business Line Hyderabad: The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR) and the Karnataka Government will form a consortium along with other stakeholders to promote millets. The consortium will work on product development and build a brand for Karnataka ragi (finger millet). “There is a need to change the image of millets. Make them more modern and create a buzz around them. Developing...

-The Hindu Business Line Hyderabad: The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat), Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR) and the Karnataka government will form a consortium along with other stakeholders to promote millets. The consortium will work on product development and build a brand for Karnataka ragi (finger millet). “There is a need to change the image of millets. Make them more modern and create a buzz around them....