EU is pushing India and Canada to sign free trade agreements that will hurt their generic drugs—and the outrage is global After months of prevarication, the European Union has stated publicly that the free trade agreement (FTA) it signs with India will include provisions for data exclusivity because “it is extremely important for research and innovation’’. That’s what European Union ambassador Daniele Smadja told journalists in Delhi on January 21. Smadja’s...

Regulation in India's microfinance sector aims to address feckless borrowing and reckless lending – but will the new restrictions entrench poverty, rather than end it? One of the many crushing burdens for India's poor bear is debt; unable to make ends meet, they turn to traditional moneylenders. They are willing to extend credit, but at unconscionably high rates – sometimes exceeding 80%, and keeping borrowers in lifelong penury. Popular cinema and...

Free bus passes to persons living with HIV were handed over to beneficiaries in Madurai and Dindigul districts by the respective Collectors. People living with HIV, who are receiving free anti-retroviral therapy (ART), had good reason to celebrate Pongal as they received the passes which would enable them to travel to the ART centres free of cost, officials said. While distributing the passes, Madurai Collector C. Kamaraj said that helping people...

The economy shows consistent signs of growth. The challenge in the new year is to make development more equitable and broad-based… 2010 was a year of relief that soon grew into despondency. We were relieved that India had pulled out of the deepest post-War recession relatively unscathed. The soundness of its cautious macro-economic management was underlined once again and the US economy is also looking like getting slowly back on...

Saikat Dutta of The Outlook magazine and Vinita Kamte, wife of killed Mumbai police officer Ashok Kamte, are among the seven winners of this year's National RTI Awards, announced on Monday by the Public Cause Research Foundation. The foundation also organised a ceremony to honour the 10 RTI activists who were killed this year. The awards were decided by a jury consisting, among others, of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy; the former...