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PTI | Updated: Jan 11, 2018 China on Thursday objected to Vietnam's invitation to India to invest in oil and natural gas sector in the disputed South China Sea (SCS), saying it is firmly opposed to infringement of its rights using development of bilateral ties as an "excuse". Vietnam's Ambassador to India Ton Sinh Thanh on Tuesday had told an Indian news channel that his country would welcome Indian investments in the South China Sea. Responding to remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said: "China does not object to the development of normal bilateral relations of relevant countries in our neighbourhood". "But China firmly oppose relevant party to use it as an excuse to infringe upon China's legitimate rights and interests in the SCS and impair regional peace and stability," Lu said. Ton had also said defence cooperation is one of the important and effective areas of cooperation between India and Vietnam and I...

Feroz Ali, Sudarshan Rajgopal, December 26, 2017 In 2005, India made some remarkable amendments to the Indian Patents Act of 1970, to keep medicines affordable in the country. Since then we have faced a significant blowback not just from the global pharmaceutical industry but also from developed world including from the U.S. and the European Union. At the heart of the matter are the strong standards for patents which India introduced to promote genuine innovation across all fields of technology, in perfect compliance with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) norms. In contrast, developed countries have weaker standards as a result of incessant lobbying by corporate behemoths. Twelve years later, we now know what it means: India rejects bad patents in far greater number than developed countries. The background The findings of a new study by us which examined all 1,723 pharmaceutical applications rejected by the Indian Patent Office (IPO) between 2009 and 2016 have been...