-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's patent regulating agency today rejected a US company's patent claim on a drug to treat hepatitis C, raising hopes that generic drug makers could now produce cheaper versions of the medicine. The Indian Patents Controller has denied a patent to sofosbuvir from Gilead, a US biopharmaceutical company that had last year pledged to make the oral drug available in India and 90 other developing countries at $900...

-Down to Earth Government takes ordinance route to clear Bill, allowing foreign companies to bid for mineral resources The BJP-led Central government has cleared an ordinance to facilitate the auction of minerals, including ores used to produce iron, manganese and aluminium. In a cabinet meeting on Monday, the government approved amendments to the 57-year old Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act. Among other changes, the amendments will allow multinational companies such...

The tribal or the Scheduled Tribe communities constitute only 8.6 percent of India's population and yet, they are around 40 percent of those displaced due to ‘development’ projects. In the midst of a raging debate on the new Land Acquisition Ordinance, a new report brings out many such paradoxes of development versus displacement of India’s indigenous or Adivasi people. The report exposes the anomalies of land alienation, displacement and forced...

-Business Standard The ordinance has returned near absolute power of discretion in land acquisition, except in tribal areas, into the hands of the bureaucracy yet again Even after the National Democratic Alliance's land ordinance, governments will still need the consent of tribal gram sabhas in all Schedule V and VI areas of the country before acquiring land for themselves or for public-private projects. While the land ordinance has done away with the need...

-The Hindu When the National Democratic Alliance government amended the land acquisition Act through an ordinance last week, it promised to set farmers and industry on an amiable path to mutual benefits and development. Land acquisition under the 1894 Act had been marked by violent protests, even police firings at farmers. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013, is the first law on...