The FMP is an effort to celebrate the romance of journalism. Journalistic collectives have so far either been watering holes or trade unions. It is an organization dedicated to media freedom and quality journalism. Editors have a guild. Owners, whether of newspapers or TV channels have associations to lobby their interests. But there is no association that cuts across mediums to champion issues of professional interest to journalists. FMP is...

-The Indian Express   Muslim deprivation is embedded in broader developmental challenges. Whenever the Indian electorate has been told that the country is doing well economically, it has displayed disbelief. This voter scepticism has not spared even the largest of national parties. The relatively successful economic performance of the last decade could not be projected effectively by the UPA. BJP/ NDA strategists were quick to take advantage of this and claim that the...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation's (WHO) work of setting up norms and standards for production of medicines seems to be flawed by a fundamental conflict of interest. At the heart of its standard setting work is an entity the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) in which majority of the WHO member countries have no voting rights and which is dominated by pharmaceutical industry groups. This glaring...

-The Hindu   Forest cover loss has occurred at a period when area under jhum cultivation is declining, suggesting that the land use policy has been counterproductive to forests Two spectacular bamboo dances, one celebrated, the other reviled, enliven the mountains of Mizoram. In the colourful Cheraw, Mizo girls dance as boys clap bamboo culms at their feet during the annual Chapchar Kut festival. The festival itself is linked to the other dance:...

-The Hindu   No one can attack India's well-founded Intellectual Property regime as being weak merely because a drug that is claimed to be an invention fails the test of law India and its intellectual property (IP) laws have been the subject of sharp criticism recently. Now, there is talk of the government invoking emergency provisions with regard to Dasatinib, a cancer drug. The decibel level may go up several notches. Let us look...