In January 2005, drug product patent protection was reintroduced in India to comply with the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. How are the multinational pharmaceutical companies responding to the new policy environment? Is India likely to see monopolisation of the industry and high prices, which was the pattern before 1972 when India had product patent protection? Will the positive features of the post-1972 process patent era be diluted or negated?

Microsoft India has partnered with government in delivering many successful e-governance initiatives. It has played a key role in the areas of education through the Siksha initiative by enhancing IT skills of the teachers. Ranbir Singh, group director, public sector, Microsoft India, in an interview with Samir Sachdeva mentions the areas where Microsoft has partnered with various government agencies for the betterment of society.

This paper seeks to map the extent to which civil society actors champion environmental justice in an industrial risk society. It examines the role of civil society actors in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, in being able to perceive industrial risk and push local concerns in development processes. The paper draws on qualitative and empirical research for a local case study in Merebank, South Durban, to explore how civil society engaged to organize and respond to local groundwater contamination caused by the German multinational Bayer, and also influence construction of knowledge around risk.

The compulsory licence for Nexavar is only the beginning of a new battle over drug prices. (Editorial)

Doles are not a long-term solution for poverty alleviation; they only promote indolence. Catering to the rising life-style of urban India and leading rural Bharat to a spiral of prosperity can only come through setting up of productive enterprise, opines Chandigarh-based technologist and entrepreneurial professional Chandra Mohan.

If the news of alleged illegal mining in Karnataka by the Reddy brothers has generated much controversy, not far behind is the mineral-rich state of Odisha. RTI applications filed in the Odisha Pollution Control Board (OPCB) and State Forest Department have disclosed that illegal mining worth above 2,000 crore is being carried out by Essel Mining & Industries Ltd of the Aditya Birla Group.

The wider democratic role of panchayats was very much in evidence on April 8, 2011 at a conference on 'Agriculture and Panchayats in Rajasthan in the Specific Context of Agreements with Multinational and other Big Agribusiness Companies'. In this conference panchayat leaders from 14 districts of Rajasthan unanimously called upon the Rajasthan government to cancel agreements on farm research with seven multinational and other big agribusiness companies during 2010.