The discussion paper on compulsory licensing of patents will have achieved its purpose if it can lead to a proactive policy in the area of drugs and health. IN a proactive move to ensure a fair balance between protection of intellectual property rights and protection of the public interest, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has chosen to put out a discussion...

Chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) Santa Sihna on Sunday called upon the Orissa Government, civil society and all the stakeholders including children to play a key role in aiding the commission so as to bring changes in lives of each and every child through Right to Education (RTE). Attending a State level convention jointly organised by NCPCR and Orissa Alliance on Convention on rights of the...

Marginalized groups such as indigenous communities deserve special attention from policy-makers if the world is to achieve the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the annual United Nations conference with civil society groups heard today. Speakers told the 63rd UN Department of Public Information (DPI)/Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Conference in Melbourne, Australia, of the need to overturn entrenched disparities in health and life expectancy between rich...

The fund crunch for the government’s rural roads programme appears all set to affect road construction efforts in the worst Naxal-affected districts where the government is contemplating to saturate road requirements — by connecting every habitation — beyond the rigid norms of Bharat Nirman and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The Rural Development Ministry, which administers the rural connectivity programme, is learnt to have apprised an empowered group of officers,...

The NAC suggests steps to ensure food security, but its recommendation for ‘selective universalisation' of the PDS is criticised. INDIA is home to some 230 million undernourished people – that is, 27 per cent of all undernourished people in the world. Worse still, more than half of all child deaths in India are because of malnutrition, and over 1.5 million children in the country are at the risk of being malnourished...