-The Business Standard The Novartis verdict by the Supreme Court emphasised the importance of flexibilities in drug patent laws, in contrast to Western countries which are seeking TRIPS-plus hardening through free-trade agreements As curtains on the six-year-long legal tussle with Swiss drug giant Novartis AG finally came down earlier this month, the Indian government did not waste a second in hailing the Indian patent law which it said was in "full...

-The United Nations The implementation of social protection measures can play a key role in rescuing minors from occupational bondage, a new report by the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) has found. According to the World Report on Child Labour, varying types of social protection measures such as cash transfer schemes, social health protection and providing income security in old age, can help reduce the number of children around the world...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: You could be popping certain pills and combinations that are illegally approved, harmful, cleared without proper clinical trials or even banned in the US and other countries. Delivering a severe rap on the government's knuckles, a parliamentary standing committee on health has charged it with "dilly-dallying and procrastination'' over serious irregularities in approval of life-saving medicines, not following the global ban on harmful drugs, and failing...

KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The urban Indian's diet, pickled with takeaways from fast-food joints and instant foods that are ready in a jiffy at the end of a long working day, could worsen the present epidemic of hypertension due to its high proportion of salt. In a city where every fourth adult is believed to have hypertension, experts said the focus should be on reducing salt intake in the daily...