National
Landmark
verdict
The Indian
pharmaceutical industry and health aid agencies have welcomed the judgment of
the Supreme
Court which has
upheld the refusal by the Patent Office to grant multi-national pharma giant Novartis
a
patent for the
beta-polymorphic form of imatinib mesylate sold as Glivec and used in the
treatment of cancer.
The judgment in
the Novartis case is a victory for patients in India and around the world. In
its initial reaction,
international body
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) has welcomed the verdict.
“Novartis’
attacks on the
elements of India’s patent law that protect public health have failed. The
Supreme Court’s
decision prevents
companies from abusing the patent system to get unwarranted patents on existing
medicines, to
block price-busting generic competition on HIV and other essential medicines.
This confirms
that all patent
offices in India have to use this interpretation and the law is now clear and
must be strictly
applied.” The
verdict has provided clarity regarding ‘evergreening’ of products and it would
now be difficult
for multi-national
companies to establish that a product is a genuine invention.
Fraudsters
now take IMF name
African countries
are their destination of choice and so far they have been using many tricks to
lure people to
part with their
bank and other vital details to commit financial frauds in the hope of getting
millions. But now
they have begun
taking big names to impress and dupe the uninitiated. Fraud mails are now
coming in the
name of the
International Monetary Fund. Curiously, while the fraudster keeps the address
of the global
institution
intact, in a cut and paste job from the official website, the deviation is in
the phone number and
email ID of the
contact person. It came on the All Fools Day, but the motive is far from a spot
of benign fun.
LPG
supply: OMCs refuse to deliver quota after deadline
Even as the oil
marketing companies (OMCs) marginally reduced the rates of LPG domestic
non-subsidised
cylinders (Rs. 3),
thousands of households who had not exhausted their quota of nine subsidised
cylinders
will not be able
to avail themselves of this benefit, as the OMCs have refused to provide
subsidised cylinders
of the previous
year after the expiry of the March 31 deadline. The government last year fixed
the cap on
subsidised
cylinders at nine per household a year. Beyond this, consumers would have to
buy cylinders at
the market rate.
As the period between the initial announcement of the cap of six cylinders,
which was later
raised to nine,
came at the middle of last year, many households were unable to finish their
quota and had
hoped that they
would be able to draw their quota even after March 31.
EC
moves Calcutta High Court challenging West Bengal government’s notice on rural
polls
In a major
development that can have a bearing on the fate of the panchayat election in
the State, the West
Bengal State
Election Commission (WBSEC) moved the Calcutta High Court seeking cancellation
of the
State government’s
notification on holding the election in the last week of April. In a
notification issued by the
State’s Panchayat
department in March it was stated that the rural polls would be held in two
phases on April
26 and April 30.
The Commission maintains that the department had unilaterally issued the
notification and
sought that a
fresh notification be made in consultation with it. Another major point of
contention is that the
Commission wants
to deploy paramilitary forces during the election , something the government
does not
want and has
pointed out that deployment of the State Armed Police would meet the security
requirements
for the polls and
if required the help of certain other State police forces could be sought . The
impasse
between the two sides
could not be resolved despite the intervention of Governor M.K. Narayanan. The
Commission has
pointed out that under Section 243 of the Constitution, which empowers the
Commission to
conduct elections,
there are provisions for the Commission to request the Governor to make
available “staff”
to hold the polls.
Accident
relief trains in all divisions by 2017
Self Propelled
Accident Relief Train (SPART) units that can be rapidly deployed at accident
sites will be in
place at all 59
Indian Railway divisions across the country by 2016-17. These SPART units with
advanced
medical
facilities, surgery theatres and drug storage would be over and above the
conventional accident
relief trains with
eight to ten coaches that have to be fitted with locos to be taken to an
accident site.
Employment
generation rate dips in metros, mini metros: Survey
Kolkata, Mumbai
and Ahmedabad are among the cities with the highest decline in new job
generation growth
between October
and March 2013, according to a survey that said that job generation has dropped
by over
14.1 per cent
during the period compared to a year ago. The study, however, revealed that
even in this
gloomy scenario
aviation sector registered the highest number of new jobs followed by human
resource
development,
academics and real estate. The rest of the sectors registered negative growth
rates ranging
between 4 and 46
per cent. The study was undertaken by the Economic Research Bureau of industry
body
ASSOCHAM. In
absolute numbers, Delhi and the National Capital Region topped in job
generation followed
by Bangalore,
Mumbai and Chennai. But growth rates of job creation had declined with
Hyderabad being the
only city with a
positive growth rate (0.1 per cent) and all the other Tier I cities showing
negative rates of
growth. This
included Ahmedabad (-37.4 per cent), Pune (-23.2 per cent), Mumbai (-21.6),
Kolkata (-18),
Chennai (-11.3),
Bangalore (-9.9) and Delhi and NCR (-1.6). In tier II cities, Kochi has
registered highest
growth rate,
followed by Lucknow and Meerut.
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