-The Hindu Business Line From maker of versions of drugs, India's pharmaceutical industry has turned a top innovator Twenty years ago, Ranbaxy was a home-spun drug-maker. The Indian Patents Act allowed companies to make chemically-similar versions of innovative drugs. Visionaries in the pharmaceutical sector, like Parvinder Singh (Ranbaxy's key architect and member of its promoter family) and Anji Reddy (founder of Dr Reddy's Laboratories), were alive. And the pharmaceutical industry did not have...

-Economic and Political Weekly While the Supreme Court decision in the recent Novartis case has cleared the way for production of generic drugs in India, doctors have to prescribe cheaper alternatives to costly brands if patients with limited means are to benefit. What is being hailed as a victory in the struggle for affordable medicines in the country will actually be one only when there is a pro-patient slant to the...

-The Indian Express Khunti: It could not have been an easy decision for Jyoti Mariyam Hora, 10, to leave Khunti and head for Delhi. Though her best friend, Jayamani Guria, accompanied Jyoti, leaving behind her five siblings and alcoholic father should have wieghed heavily on her mind. Her mother had died when she was a toddler. They boarded the Swarna Jayanti Express to Delhi on April 11 along with Jayamani's neighbour, Chandmani,...

-PTI Kaithal (Haryana): Scores of people belonging to a Dalit community of Pabnawa village took out a protest march today and held a demonstration in front of mini secretariat here, demanding arrest of the remaining accused in the violence in which several villagers and seven policemen were injured about 10 days ago. The Indian Bahujan Sandesh Party (Kanshi Ram) also held a demonstration in support of the demands of Dalits of...

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)...