RANBAXY DEBACLE: PHARMA'S TARGET IS DRUG INDUSTRY

By Dr.Rashmi Sanyal / Delhi

It’s abundantly clear that the Ranbaxy fiasco in the US, in which the company has to pay $500 million for allegedly selling adulterated drugs, is the big opportunity that the multinational drug companies have been waiting for to malign India.

Grabbing Ranbaxy by the scruff of its neck, the propaganda machines of the Big Pharma have unleashed a campaign against Indian generic manufacturers: if India’s $2 billion dollar Ranbaxy is bad, the rest of the industry should be bad as well. Their medicines are dirty and they are really bad not just for the North Americans and Europeans, but for Africans and Latin Americans as well.

MANNEQUINS MAKES MUMBAI MEN SEXUAL PREDATORS

By Ajit Karmakar / Mumbai

Till recently, my daily commute included the Dadar flyover. Every morning, sitting in a taxi, I would see a plastic mould of a headless and limbless female torso, wearing a bra and a panty, dangling from the façade of one of the old buildings that stands at the edge of the flyover. I’ve done this route for years. That torso has been there too. It never struck me that being in a car driven by a man who also saw that torso placed me in grave danger. Because if corporator Ritu Tawade is to be believed, that torso could “affect the mindset of men” and make them commit “wrong acts”.

SALWA JUDUM'S CRIME LIST: 99 RAPES, NOT A SINGLE 'FIR'

By Pallavi Polanki (Guest Writer)

When the Supreme Court in 2011 banned the Salwa Judum, a state-sponsored tribal militia propped up to counter Maoists in Chhattisgarh, it ordered the state government to investigate and register FIRs against all alleged criminal activities of the Salwa Judum.

In addition to allegations of murder (500 cases) and arson (103 cases), 99 affidavits were submitted to the Supreme Court accusing the tribal militia of rape.

SPOTLIGHT: 'PILL FIGHT HEADS FOR A BITTER FINISH'

By M H Ahssan / Hyderabad

Savitri Saxena (58) was diagnosed with cancer even as her family celebrated her grandson’s admission in a prestigious Delhi college. Numbed by the news, Savitri was shocked further when she learnt that the prescribed medicine would cost at least Rs 20 lakh a year, before she could move to safer and cheaper drugs.

Rajarshi Mantri (38) urgently required stents for his heart condition. The electrical engineer was told the cost would be anything between Rs 80,000 and Rs 3 lakh. Bulk buyers get the same stents for Rs 30,000.

'PROLONGED SITTING 'WORK' COULD SHORTEN OUR LIVES'

INN News Desk

The habit increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and slows metabolism. Emerging studies have found that prolonged sitting increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, slows metabolism and even shortens our lives.

A University of Sydney study has found that adults who sat 11 or more hours a day had a 40 percent increased risk of dying in the next three years compared with those who sat for fewer than four hours a day, the New York Daily News reported.

SPECIAL REPORT: IS DELHI UNIVERSITY 'REALLY' DYING?

By Harish Trivedi / Delhi

Delhi University (DU) has been so constantly in the news in recent weeks as to have become a spectacle. Some of the finest minds in our public life have issued alarmed and alarming statements about its future direction. Day after day the media has carried extensive reports on the critical state of DU’s health, as if it were a hapless victim of brutal violation about to die. In turn, the vice-chancellor of DU has been accorded the kind of space in media which could be the envy of ministers and film stars. 
    
So what’s all the hullabaloo about? On the face of it, it’s only a syllabus and a new degree structure, so when did these dry academic matters become so newsworthy?

IS JHARKHAND NEXT ON CHIT FUND PONZI SCHEMES?

By Sumit Rajan / Ranchi

West Bengal and neighbouring Odisha and Assam might be bearing the maximum brunt of the recent chit fund scams, but Jharkhand is not far behind. The deadly tentacles of the ponzi scheme have also gripped several people in the state. As usual, the people bearing the brunt are the lower middle class and the poor who trusted their life’s savings with these companies.

INDIAN NAVY SCANDAL, WIFE-SWAPPING WITH FORCE

By Kajol Singh & Avinash Acharya

In the last few months, the navy has been hit by at least four major scandals

• Wife of a marine commando based in Kochi alleges her husband forced her into a ‘wife-swapping network’ in Visakhapatnam. - Navy response: Marital discord.
• Wife of a naval lieutenant based in Karwar alleges she was forced into getting sexually involved with husband’s colleagues. - Navy response: Marital discord.
• Naval officer accused of sending obscene mobile text messages to several women. - Navy response: Officer dismissed after general court martial.
• Naval officer enters into an illicit relationship with the wife of a superior and ‘stealing the affection of a brother-officer’s wife’. - Navy response: Officer dismissed.

One afternoon last month, Malayalam news channels aired the visage of a 25-year-old woman, pixellated to protect her identity. She was the wife of an Indian navy officer, a 26-year-old marine commando, posted at its Kochi base. What she put on record as having undergone in the navy’s precincts in Visakhapatnam, where her husband was posted before being sent to Kochi, shocked audiences and sent seismic waves across the naval establishment. Here’s what she said on TV: “My husband coerced me have to have sex with his superiors and threatened to kill me if I refused.”