-The Hindu The Supreme Court has denied Novartis a patent for its anti-cancer drug Gleevec. This leaves the door open for Indian pharmaceutical companies to produce their own versions of the drug. Since these are sold at roughly one tenth of the patented brand price, for thousands of cancer patients it means the difference between medicine and no medicine at all. It is not just cancer patients that will benefit, but...

-Outlook India has long been the sleeping giant of global agriculture. But its misguided policies while boosting short-term output, yet may transform India into a food importer After decades on the sidelines of international agricultural trade, India was poised last year to become a major food supplier, overtaking traditional exporters of food grain and meat. This could prove to be flash in the pan. The sudden rise and fall of India...

-Live Mint I&B minister raises prospect of independent broadcasting authority, says govt may be forced to set up ratings system Information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Manish Tewari on Friday raised the prospect of an independent broadcasting authority and said the government may be forced to set up a ratings system unless the industry took steps to put in place a credible method of ranking television programmes, in a series of statements that...

-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...

-Civil Society Online Accreditation is the act of granting credit or recognition. It is to be preceded with a process where facts, figures and professional ethics are scrutinized so that the desired certification of competency, authority or credibility is presented. Only the best suited with the requisite track record are to find themselves in the approved list. In India, the much talked about and well critiqued initiative wherein consultants undertaking the responsibility...