-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India scored an important success when it fully protected its traditional knowledge by stalling a leading UK-based laboratory's move to patent a medicinal composition containing turmeric, pine bark and green tea for treating hair loss. The move comes just days after India foiled a similar attempt by US-based consumer goods giant Colgate-Palmolive from patenting a mouthwash formula containing herbal extracts. The vigilance of the Traditional Knowledge...

-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...

-IPS News NIYAMGIRI: As the rhythmic thumping of dancing feet reaches a crescendo, the women offer a song to their forest god for a bountiful harvest. Then, with earthen pots on their heads and their spiritual creatures – a pigeon and a hen – in tow, they proceed in single file on a long march away from their village of Kadaraguma, located on the Niyamgiri mountain range in the Rayagada District of...

-Down to Earth Srihari kurade proudly walks through his orchard of kokum (Garciniaindica), a wild fruit that is famous for its therapeutic properties. With more than 2,400 trees spread over seven hectares (ha) of land, his orchard in South Goa is the world’s largest kokum plantation. Kurade is also perhaps the only farmer in the region to have taken up systematic large-scale plantation of the fruit that is endemic to the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Government may face some tough questions during the monsoon session of Parliament with its ambitious national AIDS control program in jeopardy due to the lack of funds. At least 15 states have reported severe shortage of free condoms, while five to six of them have announced they are out of stock, sources said. Though shortages have been continuing for over a year now, many states like...