The Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant Novartis is taking the state of India to court in a case that has, after rumbling about in the lower courts for six years, wound up as a very public litmus test of the legal framework sustaining India’s generic drugs revolution.  With the case due before the Supreme Court on 28 March, the fate of millions who depend on affordable Indian medicines may soon hang in the...

-The Times of India A conspiracy to dilute charges against accused persons in the Adarsh housing society scam by CBI lawyers has been unearthed with the arrest of special public prosecutor Mandar Goswamy, CBI counsel in Mumbai High Court in Adarsh and other cases, income tax lawyer J K Jagiasi, former Congress MLC Kanhaiya Lal Gidwani (accused in the Adarsh scam) and his son Kailash.  The accused lawyers reportedly took Rs 1.25...

-IANS A court in West Bengal's Burdwan district Monday sent to two days' CID custody four people arrested in connection with the killing of two Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leaders.   "The court of chief judicial magistrate sent the four accused -- Choton Chakrabarty, Patit Paban Tah, Surajit Tah and Gupin Mondal -- to two days CID custody although we had sought seven days. The accused will be brought to CID headquarters...

Medical Council of India failed to start rural health practitioner course The Delhi High Court on Monday issued contempt notices to the health ministry and the Medical Council of India (MCI), the country’s apex body for medical education, for not starting rural health practitioner course and thus failing to comply with its order. The bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi issued notices to P K Pradhan, secretary with the Union Ministry of Health...

-The Telegraph A group of eminent individuals has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to initiate a “truly inclusive process of deliberation” to help formulate a rational public policy on nuclear power and genetically modified (GM) crops. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, a former Supreme Court judge, and 16 others, including former scientists and administrators, have also questioned Singh’s remarks to a US journal last month suggesting that foreign non-government organisations...