India’s new pharmaceutical policy seeks to bring at least 400 essential medicines—or 60% of the drugs sold in the country—under the government’s pricing control. The department of pharmaceuticals on Friday put out a draft policy, pending since 2005, after a committee prepared a list of essential medicines, laying down new rules governing drug pricing. Currently, the government controls the prices of only 34 essential medicines. The draft says the policy, to be finalized...

-PTI   The trustworthiness of the administration among tribal population is “very low” due to unresolved land issues that have led to escalation in Maoist menace, Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said here on Saturday. Issues such as forcible eviction of people for land acquisition for projects, unsettled rehabilitation packages, degradation and unproductivity of land given to the poor have aggravated the Maoists’ menace in the Central and Eastern parts of...

The European Commission has registered Darjeeling Tea as a Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) product — the first commodity from India to get such a tag. The status implies that the brew produced only in Darjeeling can be sold as Darjeeling Tea in the European Union countries. But a section of blenders, who at present pass off brew with a certain percentage of Darjeeling brew as Darjeeling Tea, have been given a...

-BBC   Police in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have registered cases against 16 police officers nearly six months after they were accused of rape. The personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) are accused of committing the crimes during protests by farmers in Bhatta-Parsaul villages. Villagers had clashed with the police in May while protesting against the government acquisition of their land. Farmers said they were being forced to give up land...

-ENS Economic Bureau   The government today approved a national policy for manufacturing that aims to increase the sector’s share in the economy to 22 per cent from 16 per cent and create 100 million jobs over 10 years. The policy will ensure this by facilitating national manufacturing investment zones, which will offer faster clearances. “It hopes to... give comfort to investors through a single-window clearance mechanism,” Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma...