The number of asylum-seekers seeking to live in the industrialized world continues to fall and is now almost half the level it was a decade ago, the United Nations refugee agency reported today as it released its annual snapshot of asylum trends. The report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) finds that 358,800 applications for asylum were lodged last year in 44 developed countries – a drop of 5...

The Chhattisgarh government is not content with a life term for Binayak Sen for sedition. It wants the rights activist to be convicted for conspiring to wage war against the state. In a criminal appeal filed in the high court, the state has challenged a Raipur sessions court's acquittal of Sen and two others under Section 121 A of the IPC, which deals with hatching conspiracy to wage war or...

The Delhi High Court has set up a committee of lawyers and tasked it to collect vegetable and fruit samples for simultaneous testing at a Delhi Government laboratory as well as one certified by National Board for Testing and Calibration for presence of residue of pesticides. A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna directed the committee comprising Additional Solicitor-General A.S. Chandhiok, Delhi Government Standing...

Patients battling cancer, infections and mental illness joined a rally here today beseeching the government to reject a trade pact with the European Union that they fear will threaten the availability of inexpensive generic medicines in India. An estimated 2,000 people, many among them infected with HIV, walked along Delhi’s Parliament Street on a day when Indian and EU officials were negotiating a free trade agreement in Brussels. Health activists and lawyers...

‘It will hinder access to quality, affordable generic medicines produced in India' People in Asia living with HIV and who depend on affordable generic AIDS medicines to stay alive have impressed upon the Indian government to stand strong against European Union demands on the sensitive Intellectual Property (IP) chapter in ongoing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations. The EU is pushing for harmful IP provisions to be included in the trade agreement...