The Indian government is finalising a plan to give out billions of pounds worth of essential medicines to patients in government-run hospitals and clinics - the biggest scheme of its kind in history.

The landmark project would be another massive blow to Western pharmaceutical giants who are already struggling to find a foothold in the world's second most populous country.

The West's big pharmaceutical firms - or "big pharma" - have long been thwarted on the sub-continent where the authorities freely allow generic drug companies to manufacture cheap copies of patented medicines.

Doctors will be ordered to only use generic drugs in the programme, which is expected to be approved in the next couple of months.

If a doctor prescribes a branded medicine they will face a hefty fine.

Analysts believe the policy will cause the big pharmaceutical companies to rethink their emerging markets strategy.

At the moment companies, like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, spend a fortune on research only to see their precious formulations copied by generic drug companies in India.

Healthcare specialists have welcomed the policy though and claim it may be a large first step towards universal healthcare.

The FBI has been brought in to help investigate a cache of explosives -- grenades, blasting caps and fuse igniters -- that was found in a backpack under a bridge in Placentia on Monday.

Orange County bomb squad officials were brought in after the backpack was discovered about 8:50 a.m. Monday by people working in a drainage ditch, said Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.

After cordoning off the area, bomb technicians detonated the contents of the backpack, including six grenades, blasting caps, fuse igniters and blasting powder. For several hours, Lakeview Avenue between Orangethorpe Avenue and Eisenhower Circle was closed to traffic.

Chicago's mayor and police superintendent publicly defended their new gang-fighting strategy Monday amid growing criticism that the changes are failing and a big reason why the city's homicide rate has soared this year.

After weeks of media reports about Chicago homicides - which so far are up nearly 38 percent from last year - Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy defiantly said during a news conference that the gang strategies in place before McCarthy arrived were the ones that failed, not the new ones.

More beat officers are now on the streets and staying in specific areas, replacing the large, specialized units that would temporarily drop into crime-ridden areas. Emanuel and McCarthy said they have no plans to change that strategy, and the mayor announced Monday that he's devoting another $4 million to tear down vacant buildings where gang members live and store guns and drugs.

The old tactic of flooding high-crime areas with teams of hundreds of officers for a short period of time, then moving the teams to other areas, was "like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound," McCarthy said. "We're not repairing anything by doing that."

© Reuters/Toby Melville/Files
A GlaxoSmithKline logo is seen outside one of its buildings in west London in this February 6, 2008 file photograph. GlaxoSmithKline Plc has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay $3 billion to settle the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history, according to court filings and prosecutors. The settlement includes $1 billion in criminal fines and $2 billion in civil fines in connection with the sale of the drug company's Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia products.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges and pay $3 billion to settle what government officials on Monday described as the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history.

The agreement, which still needs court approval, would resolve allegations that the British drugmaker broke U.S. laws in the marketing and development of pharmaceuticals.

GSK targeted the antidepressant Paxil to patients under age 18 when it was approved for adults only, and it pushed the drug Wellbutrin for uses it was not approved for, including weight loss and treatment of sexual dysfunction, according to an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department.

The company went to extreme lengths to promote the drugs, such as distributing a misleading medical journal article and providing doctors with meals and spa treatments that amounted to illegal kickbacks, prosecutors said.

In a third instance, GSK failed to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration safety data about its diabetes drug Avandia, in violation of U.S. law, prosecutors said.

The misconduct continued for years beginning in the late 1990s and continued, in the case of Avandia's safety data, through 2007. GSK agreed to plead guilty to three misdemeanor criminal counts, one each related to the three drugs.

A new Canadian science advocacy group, has issued a challenge to the Canadian government: stick to the science in the development and implementation of important policy decisions. This group will work diligently to ensure Canadians are protected from exploitation by unscrupulous organizations peddling useless and potentially harmful products and services.

Bad Science Watch strives to serve as a key Canadian lobbying organisation, dedicated to challenging lax consumer protection measures and fighting for the rights of Canadians to accurate information when making decisions which affect their health, prosperity and well-being.

"The Canadian public has been poorly-served by a government which displays little respect for objectivity and science", said Bad Science Watch Executive Director, Jamie Williams. "Consequently, weak consumer protection regulations allow the sale of products and services that don't work, and Canadians are exploited by the unscrupulous or misinformed."

Bad Science Watch will announce details of its first projects in the coming weeks. Among them: targeting bogus food-intolerance testing in Canadian drugstores, and an intensive investigation into the state of the Canadian anti-WiFi lobby.

"Bad Science Watch will fill a unique role as the only national organization in Canada with a focus on strengthening consumer protection against bad science," explained Chair of the Board of Directors, Michael Kruse. "With a strong commitment to the most professional and transparent non-profit practices, our experienced Board of Directors, Steering Committee, and Executive are striving to create the most effective and consistently successful force countering bad science in Canada."

Canadians interested in volunteering and donating to Bad Science Watch can find more information here.

Let the games - and the wild, drunken sex and debauchery - begin!

In the run-up to the 2012 Summer Olympics, which kick off July 27, a new book reveals just what goes on at Olympic Villages worldwide - and no matter the host country, it's always a struggle keeping booze and condoms in strong supply.

According to the anonymously authored exposé The Secret Olympics - written by a former British competitor - organizers supplied 70,000 condoms to athletes at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. The stockpile ran out in a week.

While alcohol and drugs are banned at Olympic Villages, competitors often fill water bottles with booze and smuggle in weed and doping agents.

"When I'm there, I'm in two different gears," says one female US Olympian, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity. "I'm so focused that I see nothing else, or I'm partying my butt off."

While officials don't condone such behavior, they don't condemn it, either - the only thing that matters, say those who spoke to The Post, is that the image of the Olympics remain unsullied.

Or, as the anonymous author writes: "What happens in the Village stays in the Village."

The murder of model Eva Rhodes was covered up by the Hungarian authorities to protect a policeman who was involved in her death, her sister claimed today.
The battered body of Miss Rhodes, a friend of John Lennon, was found in woods near her home near Gyor, 65-miles from Budapest in 2009 - months after Hungarian and British authorities had ruled out foul play.

Her caretaker Csaba Augusztinyi admitted killing her, setting fire to her body and was sentenced to 13 years in prison after an appeal in 2010.

But her sister Judith Majlat told Westminster Coroner's Court at a pre-inquest hearing she believed the Hungarian authorities had covered up the murder investigation to protect a local police officer.

For 12 years the 65-year-old grandmother and former beauty queen had cared for abandoned cats and dogs at a sanctuary funded partly by donations from animal lovers in England and a gift from Yoko Ono.

Mrs Rhodes had been the target of a hate campaign and had clashed with local police while running the Puss in Boots Animal Trust.

A Melbourne family who claim they were slugged an extra $55 "carbon tax charge" when burying a relative were told "even the dead don't escape the carbon tax".

Erica Maliki and her family were burying her father-in-law at Springvale Cemetery when she was told the price per burial plot had increased because of the carbon tax.

Her father-in-law died on June 30, the day before the carbon tax was introduced, and was buried early last week.

"I thought to myself, 'What carbon could possibly be used by putting a man in a grave?'" Ms Maliki said.

"All they did was put the dirt back in. How can they charge us a carbon tax for burying someone?"

Vernon, Connecticut - Police in Vernon are investigating reports that a man held a knife to a child's face and threatened to cut out his tongue.

On Friday, a woman named Heather Bonneville called police to inform them that a family acquaintance, who has been identified as Roman Fein, held the knife within inches of her 3-year-old son's face before making the threat to cut his tongue out of his mouth.

Bonneville said that the incident occurred while she was working, and her son was under the care of a babysitter.

Police said several witnesses provided the same information about what occurred.

Fein admitted to police that he had been flipping a knife open in the area of a child, but he said he denies purposely holding the knife towards the child, police said.

Fein was arrested and charged with breach of peace, reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a child.

A naked man who may have been on drugs was arrested Saturday for killing a Tracy motel employee.

Andrew Carreiro, 25, is behind bars accused of killing the 62-year-old woman who cleans rooms at the Hacienda Inn on the 600 block of West 11th Street.

Witnesses say they found Cerreiro covered in blood and standing near the partially naked body of the woman, say witnesses.

"[It's] most definitely the craziest thing I've seen in my life; most definitely," said Jermaine Haynes, a motel resident who made the gruesome discovery.

The scene is something Haynes says he wishes he'd never witnessed, and says he knew the victim.