Incomplete saga

IN Media Watch Briefs | 09/10/2015

The Hindu's page one story on GVK Biosciences and its disgruntled whistleblower quotes the company, the Commerce Ministry, the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance and a drug controller here to rue the loss of reputation for the drug maker. The story suggests that the harm done to the company's reputation by international scrutiny and the ban on 700 drugs plays into the IPR tussle between the multinational drug companies and Indian generic drug makers. All fine except that you want to know, was there a basis for the charges about the clinical research? The fuller story on that aspect can be found here.

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The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.                   

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.                 

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