New Delhi Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma has mooted a new formula to the group of ministers (GoM) on pharma pricing to keep prices of essential medicines in check. Sharma recommended that the weighted average price of all drug brands that have more than 5% market share in a particular therapeutic segment should be fixed as the ceiling price of that particular drug.

Two countries to set up joint task force to explore investment opportunities. With the US continuing to nudge India to reduce its dependence on oil from Iran, India today indicated that it was looking at the possibility of increased oil supplies from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Addressing a joint press conference with his UAE counterpart Shiekh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan here, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna underlined that ‘’The UAE is our largest trading partner, significant contributor to our energy security and hosts about 1.75 million Indian expatriates.’’

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday rejected the Parliamentary standing committee's suggestion to delete a clause in the Land Acquisition Bill allowing the government to acquire land for public-private-partnership (PPP) projects.

He said the government would not compromise with the fundamental principles in the Bill, whose thrust is on urbanisation and industrialisation. A similar assurance came from Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, who said his ministry would not allow any compromise on manufacturing and industrial activities as they were a national priority.

India and the United Arab Emirates on Friday discussed the prospects of closer energy ties including more import of oil, which could partly offset declining purchases from Iran, and investment in the downstream sector such as refineries.

While visiting External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and his visiting UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed investments in India, officials met on a parallel track to build on last year's 16 per cent increase in import of crude from UAE principalities.

With the Union commerce ministry turning down the demand for declaring tea the national drink, tea associations will seek Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention in this regard. Minister of State for Commerce Jyotiraditya Scindia told the Rajya Sabha that a proposal to declare tea the national drink was examined during 2006 but was not pursued further because objections were raised by a few state governments. It was felt that coffee is a competing beverage and declaring one a national drink will likely be at the cost of the other.

The Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, to formulate a comprehensive pharmaceutical policy aimed at making essential drugs more affordable to the common man, on Monday, met leading lights of the pharmaceutical industry to elicit their views on the issue.

The GoM is mainly examining the issues related to regulating prices of 348 drugs. Pharmaceutical representatives, including Zydus Cadila Chairman and Managing Director Pankaj R. Patel, and Dr. Reddy's Managing Director and COO Satish Reddy, presented their views to the GoM on the new policy.

Says it would prefer basing its estimate on crop cutting method and not bale press method proposed by textiles ministry

The Union ministry of agriculture has rejected the draft Cotton Trade (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2012, proposed by the textile ministry for streamlining output estimates for the industry. The agri ministry says it would prefer to continue basing its estimate on what is termed the crop cutting method and not the bale press method as proposed by the textile ministry in its Bill.

Barely 24 hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to reconvene a meeting to discuss policies on export of farm products and storage of grains, the government has conceded another major demand of Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar by allowing export of caesin, a value-added milk product.

“Export of casein and casein products has been moved from the ‘prohibited’ to ‘restricted’ category. Export of casein is now permitted under licence,” an official statement issued tonight said. The government had banned exports of casein and milk powder in February last year, following a fall in the domestic supply of milk.

Committee to review demand-supply situation after three weeks to prevent abnormal rise in prices

The commerce ministry has decided to lift the ban on export of cotton and allow traders to apply afresh for registration. The ban was lifted barely hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was scheduled to chair a meeting on export of farm products, including cotton. However, the Prime Minister’s meeting was later postponed.

New Delhi The government is set to lift a ban on fresh cotton export registration, although efforts to resolve the controversial issue amicably by putting a cap on further shipments eluded a consensus on Sunday, a day before the meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss farm exports.

While agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is pitching for the complete removal of ban on fresh export registration in the year through September, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and commerce and textile minister Anand Sharma are in favour of allowing fresh licences up to two million bales to balance the interest of farmers with textile mills, sources said.