International and Bilateral Issues

India and Bangladesh will take the first step towards revisiting the proposed Teesta river treaty when officials exchange river flow data at a technical meeting of the inter-governmental Joint Rivers Commission
- India had put the treaty on hold after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, unhappy over the treaty's provisions, pulled out of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delegation to Dhaka last year.
In case of Teesta, both sides are also thinking of involving Sikkim, the uppermost riparian State.
An agreement is expected to pave the way for the signing of a similar agreement on the Feni river and five minor ones — Dudh Kumar, Manu, Khowai, Gomti and Muhuri.
West Bengal or any of the other State through which over 50 rivers flow into Bangladesh will be kept in the loop while signing water sharing agreements.
The States were briefed and their advice taken during negotiations on a protocol on land boundary that was signed during Dr. Singh's September 2011 visit to Dhaka.
The Centre had also obtained the written consent of States and kept its negotiating brief within the parameters of their advice, especially from the West Bengal government, on taking “pragmatic steps”, which meant retaining the status quo, on enclaves and exclaves.

On the eve of a high-level summit between the leaders of India and the European Union (EU) in Delhi, Oxfam has called upon the EU to not pressurise India into agreeing to new trade rules that could deny hundreds of millions of people access to affordable medicines.
The EU, backed by multinational pharmaceutical companies, is trying to impose new intellectual property and investment (IP) rules in India, which would result in drastically higher medicine prices for the poorest people across the globe, warned Oxfam.
At a time of austerity and declining aid budgets, especially for health, efforts to increase medicine prices for the world's poor would be a double blow and have a devastating impact on the achievement of health-related millennium development goals.
India plays a critical role in the global medicines market, producing over two-thirds of all generic medicines; affordable versions of drugs licensed by multinational companies, which are largely sold to poor and middle income countries.
Currently, over 80 per cent of all HIV and AIDS medicines are manufactured by generic companies in India, but if new trade rules are agreed upon, the price of life-saving treatment will increase drastically
The Indian Government, until now, has repeatedly rejected the EU demands to introduce any of the additional IP rules under the free trade agreement.

Florence Green Green, who has died at age 110, was the last known surviving veteran of World War I.
She was serving with the Women's Royal Air Force (U.K.) as a waitress at an air base in eastern England when the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918.