The apex decision-making body of the communications ministry has cleared the proposal to grant more powers to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and enable the watchdog to act like a civil court.  This puts TRAI on par with the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Competition Commission of India and permits the telecom regulator to 'summon persons, examine them on oath, demand documents and evidence on affidavits...

In a landmark decision that could set a precedent on how life-saving drugs under patents can be made affordable, the government has allowed a domestic company, Natco Pharma, to manufacture a copycat version of Bayer's patented anti-cancer drug, Nexavar, bringing down its price by 97%. In the first-ever case of compulsory licencing approval, the Indian Patent Office on Monday cleared the application of Hyderabad's Natco Pharma to sell generic drug Nexavar,...

-The Telegraph Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has sought to address stirrings of disenchantment by using the run-up to the Nandigram firing anniversary to reassure her core constituency that she would not budge from her known positions on land and industry. The chief minister emphatically asserted that her government would not endorse special economic zone (SEZ) status for the Infosys project in Rajarhat. She stuck to her stand that land ceiling would not...

-AFP Water problems in many parts of the world are chronic and without a crackdown on waste will worsen as demand for food rises and climate change intensifies, the UN warned on Sunday.  Issued on the eve of a six-day gathering on world water issues, the United Nations, in a massive report, said many daunting challenges lie ahead.  They include providing clean water and sanitation to the poor, feeding a world population set...

-The Economist   Nuclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal, says Oliver Morton THE LIGHTS ARE not going off all over Japan, but the nuclear power plants are. Of the 54 reactors in those plants, with a combined capacity of 47.5 gigawatts (GW, a thousand megawatts), only two are operating today. A good dozen are unlikely ever to reopen: six at Fukushima Dai-ichi, which suffered...