‘Dad, I got my girlfriend pregnant’: Delhi student’s prank gone wrong goes viral

NEW DELHI: A Delhi student's sense of humour took a real beating when he fooled his father into thinking that he had got his girlfriend pregnant.

The only respite is that Prateek Verma's prank made him very popular. He secretly made a video of the episode, which has been viewed more than 700,000 times since it was uploaded on YouTube three weeks ago.

In the video, Prateek first announces that he is going to play a prank on his father, saying, "Lets see what happens."

He then hesitantly tells his father not beat him up after the news he gives him, even asking him to shut the door so his mother cannot hear what he has to say.

When he spills the beans, a livid Sunder Verma begins to kick and punch as his son unsuccessfully pleads for mercy.

Finally, Verma picks up a bottle and threatens to hit him in the head, when his son finally blurts out that it is a prank.

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Ready for assembly election in Delhi: Harsh Vardhan

NEW DELHI: Upbeat over party's spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha polls, Delhi BJP chief Harsh Vardhan on Sunday said the party was ready for assembly election in the city "anytime soon" and exuded confidence of getting a clear majority

59-year-old Vardhan made it amply clear that BJP will not try to form a government in Delhi by resorting to any sort of "manipulation" and would wait for election to get a "clear mandate" to rule the city.

"We are ready for fresh election for the legislative assembly. I think election should be held at the earliest. I am confident that people of Delhi will give us a clear majority when polls are held," he told PTI in an interview.

BJP recorded a landslide victory in Lok Sabha election in the city emerging victorious in all seven seats with huge margins ranging from over one lakh to 2.6 lakh votes.

BJP's vote share in Lok Sabha polls in the city had also jumped to 46.1 per cent from 33.07 per cent in the assembly polls.

Vardhan himself won from prestigious Chandni Chowk Parliamentary seat by a margin of over 1.35 lakh votes.

Favouring early assembly election, Vardhan said polls will have to be held within next eight months as President's Rule cannot continue beyond one year.

Central rule was imposed in Delhi on February 17 and the Legislative Assembly was kept in suspended animation after AAP government had resigned.

A number of party's Delhi leaders indicated that the Narendra Modi-led government may opt for early assembly election in Delhi.

Any decision on dissolving the assembly will have to be taken by Union Cabinet.

Vardhan said his earlier stand of not forming the government due to lack of majority has not changed.

"We will not try to form government through unfair means. Our earlier stand on not forming the government has not changed. We do not have the numbers and will not resort to any manipulation," he said.

BJP, along with its ally Akali Dal's one seat, had support of 32 MLAs in the 70-member House. However, BJP's strength will come down to 28 as three sitting MLAs, Vardhan, Pervesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri have been elected as MPs.

AAP won 28 seats followed by Congress with eight. JD(U) had won one seat while one seat had gone to an Independent.

Vardhan's remarks case as AAP MLAs mooted a proposal for the party to once again form the government in Delhi, with outside support.

At a meeting of its top leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, some AAP legislators, who claimed to be around 20 in number, are said to have conveyed to the leadership that the party should make a fresh attempt at forming the government.

Sources said party MLA Rajesh Garg mooted the idea while describing Kejriwal's decision to resign in February after 49 days in power as one of the major reasons behind AAP's poor showing in the city in Lok Sabha polls.

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NaMo speech sparks hope for rivers but Sabarmati no model, Guajarat rivers also polluted

NEW DELHI: PM-elect, Narendra Modi has raised hopes among environmentalists in Delhi with his promises to revive Ganga. They now hope the same energy is directed towards Yamuna's revival once he takes charge. But the "Sabarmati model" on which Modi wants to base the Ganga project is hardly a model they claim. In fact Sabarmati is equally polluted downstream of Ahmedabad near Vasna say ecologists who have studied rivers in Gujarat. For Yamuna and Ganga, they say Modi needs to be proactive about ensuring that no sewage or industrial effluents pollute them further.

The immediate measures that a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government can take are to ensure that the all sewage and effluent treatment plants that discharge in to Yamuna are fully functional. It would need to upgrade the STP infrastructure greatly in the capital as the current number of STPs, even if they are functional will not be able to treat the amount of toxic effluents that are discharged in to the river currently. Yamuna in its flow through Delhi also doesn't have the minimum environmental flow which has made it a "dead" river.
Pumping about Rs 6,500 crores in Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) I and II over 19 years, a part of which was also during NDA rule didn't manage to bring back Yamuna from the brink. Now Modi's plans to declare Ganga as a national project and his emotive speech in Varanasi that he had answered the call of Mother Ganga, may mean a more serious approach toward rivers.

Encroachments on the floodplains such as the Akshardham temple which was cleared during the NDA rule earlier should not be allowed any more ecologists said. "We need a river protection zone notified immediately for Yamuna so that there are no more encroachments on the floodplains. Yamuna and all its tributaries in the central zone—from Yamuna Nagar to Etawah have no flow and completely dried. To revive them, we need to ensure a minimum flow all year round," said Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan.

Many environmentalists said that they were concerned NDA will only pay a lip service to rivers like Ganga or Yamuna because of their relevance to right wing "Hindutva" ideology but not do much on ground.

Himangshu Thakkar of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) for instance quotes the example of Sabarmati. "The water that's flowing through Ahmedabad is actually water from Narmada that has been channelized in to Sabarmati. Downstream of Narmada when it flows through Ankleshwar and Bharuch, it's extremely polluted because of discharge of untreated effluents. So that clearly can't be a model for any river. No river is clean in Gujarat," said Thakkar.

In fact, Vapi an industrial town in Gujarat which has river Daman Ganga flowing through it had topped the list of critically polluted areas prepared by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2011. Daman Ganga which used to be lifeline for fishermen is highly polluted now. Ankleshwar had topped the same CPCB list in 2009. Amlakhadi river at Ankleshwar and Khari river at Lali village in Ahmedabad are also highly polluted due to industrial effluents according to CPCB reports.

"BJP government in Gujarat or the NDA in centre has hardly done anything for rivers. We still respect their intentions this time and hope that they will take up the issue. One of the urgent issues that Modi government can resolve is to re-negotiate the 1994 MOU which allots just 0.724 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water in Delhi of the 11.983 BCM of annual utilizable flow." added Misra.

Professor Vikram Soni of Jamia Millia University also strongly advocates ensuring a minimum flow in Yamuna first. His recent scientific study has established the need to maintain at least 50% to 60% of the total monsoon flow throughout the year for transporting river sediment, biodiversity balance and preventing algal choking.

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Won't support AAP again in Delhi, ready for election: Congress

NEW DELHI: Delhi Congress said on Sunday it will prefer fresh election in the city to supporting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) again to form a government as favoured by a section of AAP MLAs following the drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls.

Chief spokesperson of Delhi Congress Mukesh Sharma said AAP has no moral right to talk about formation of a government in Delhi again after it went to the Supreme Court seeking dissolution of the assembly and demanding fresh election.

"There is no question of extending support to AAP to form a government again. Arvind Kejriwal had deserted people of Delhi by resorting to theatrics. He had gone to the Supreme Court seeking dissolution of the House. We will not support the party again," Sharma said.

After its spectacular performance in the assembly polls, the AAP drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls though its candidate came second in all the seven constituencies relegating all the sitting Congress MPs including Kapil Sibal, Ajay Maken and Krishna Tirath to the third position.

"Congress never withdrew support to AAP government. Kejriwal quit the government and left the people of Delhi in a lurch to gain political mileage in the Lok Sabha polls. As they did not succeed in the Lok Sabha polls, they are talking about forming government again," said Sharma.

In the Lok Sabha polls, BJP not only won all the seven seats but also came first in 60 assembly segments out of 70 while AAP occupied top position only in 10 assembly segments.

Following the party's dismal performance, some MLAs of the AAP yesterday had mooted a proposal for the party to once again form government in Delhi, with support from either the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Congress.

A section in the party feels that it should not opt for going to polls immediately and should explore forming the government again.

Sources in AAP said majority of sitting MLAs in the party did not want to fresh election immediately thinking the "Modi wave" may flatten them all if polls are held anytime soon.

Accusing Kejriwal of "helping" BJP by ensuring "division of secular votes" in Delhi and elsewhere, Sharma also did not rule out the possibility of some AAP MLAs defecting to the saffron party.

"Kejriwal has been helping BJP. He ensured BJP's sweep in Delhi through division of secular votes. There is a possibility of some AAP MLAs defecting to BJP. If that happens, then Kejriwal will be responsible," said Sharma.

He said notwithstanding Congress' poor show, the party was ready for fresh election.

"We are ready for elections," Sharma said. The BJP has already said that it would prefer fresh election than forming a government through "manipulation".

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DMRC changes rules for Metro travel cards

NEW DELHI: Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is introducing some changes in its smart cards, including increasing the minimum add value to Rs 100 from May 21.

"As most of the Delhi Metro's smart card users are regular travelers and with the opening of Rapid Metro and more corridors of Phase III, the maximum fare required for travel will increase as the commuters would cover more distance. Therefore, increasing the minimum add value of the cards will help the commuters as they won't have to stand in queue to recharge their cards time and again," ED corporate communications Anuj Dayal said.

The initial minimum add value of the smart cards has been increased from existing Rs 50 to Rs 100, out of which refundable security of Rs 50 is kept unchanged.

Subsequently, from the next transaction the minimum add value will be of Rs 200 and further add values can be in multiples of Rs 100.

In case of web top-up, minimum add value amount will be Rs 100 and multiple of Rs 50 (i.e. Rs 100, 150, 200, 250 up to 1000).

About 12,000 smart cards are refunded every day, of which 9 per cent of smart cards are purchased and refunded on the same day.

Similarly, around 30 per cent smart cards are purchased and refunded within the same month.

This has resulted in a pile up of nine lakh smart cards to be refurbished at a cost to DMRC, Dayal said.

Therefore, the administration charges for the refund of smart cards will be revised from Rs 5 to Rs 20. This measure has been taken to offset increase in cost of transaction and discourage the frequent or daily refund of smart cards.

The new measures will help in streamlining the refund system, he added.

About 70 per cent of Delhi Metro travelers are smart card users, who are able to avail a discount of 10 per cent on all their journeys by the Metro whenever they use smart cards.

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Election results 2014: AAP plays cameo role, feels need to shed ‘activist’ character

NEW DELHI: When Arvind Kejriwal declared he would take on Narendra Modi in Varanasi, cries of 'bhagoda' rented the air of the holy city even before he had landed. BJP had its gameplan drawn up: use Kejriwal's dramatic resignation after an eventful 49-day stint as Delhi chief minister to portray the man and his party as a non-serious, disruptionist force fit only for a cameo role in politics.

But as AAP volunteers started thronging the city, BJP and others realised Kejriwal's campaign was not following textbook politics. It was being conducted by ordinary citizens, many of whom did not even know the city. It had the feel of a people's movement that just kept getting bigger with each passing day. Even traditional Left parties like the CPI and CPI (ML) joined the AAP bandwagon.

With nearly 4% vote garnered nationally, a rare achievement by any political party in its first outing, it is apparent AAP has the potential to play more than just cameos, perhaps the kind of role that the Left played for decades in Indian politics.

From its inception, AAP has attracted comparisons with the Left, with some even calling it India's 'new Left' sans any ideological baggage. Party ideologue and leader Yogendra Yadav scoffs at such comparisons. "New Left is an old phrase from Europe of the 1960s. Our reality should be explained through our phrase. AAP is definitely pro-people and wedded to the philosophy of the Indian Constitution. But to say it is New Left will be wrong. The Left-Right spectrum is not the appropriate way of mapping Indian politics," he explains.

Political scientist Nivedita Menon, who has followed AAP's growth closely, also does not think it can be called the New Left. "AAP is not part of that trajectory. It does not speak that vocabulary, does not subscribe to that ideology. It is a new kind of political formation with huge potential in it."

She agrees, however, that it is left of centre in broad terms. Menon says AAP attacks capitalists and its core is a belief in direct democracy rather than representational democracy. "It is the only party that takes democracy seriously. For AAP, democracy is not that which is locked in EVMs once in five years. Their belief is in a continuous democracy. It was in ample display in Varanasi where Kejriwal could take the debate away from communalism/secularism to development. Again, it was not Modi's model of development," she argues, adding that AAP does raise issues you would expect the Left to raise.

Instead of getting caught in the ideological cauldron, Yadav says there are certain non-negotiables for his party. He lists them as a pro-people orientation, commitment to decentralised and participatory democracy, respect for diversity and commitment to social justice and sustainable development that protects ecology. "These are not drawn from the West," he asserts.

However, Yadav argues that AAP needs to build an organisation and come out of the movement phase. "Without losing our movement character, we need to build a character. When was the last that a first time party got so much votes," he says, leaving the task of political labelling to political scientists and chroniclers.

What is undeniable is that in some crucial respects, AAP's image - pro-poor, personally austere and untainted by corruption, ability to mobilise crowds without having to 'hire' them - matches that of the Left in its heyday. Indeed, it could well be argued that the decline of the mainstream Left has helped create the space for a phenomenon like AAP, very alike it in some ways while being very different in others, most importantly the lack of a clearly spelt out ideology or detailed programme of action.

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Election results 2014: Dramatic debut by Meenakshi Lekhi

Meenakshi Lekhi made a grand debut, defeating Congress heavyweight and former minister Ajay Maken by 1,62,708 votes. Maken, who also happens to be an AICC general secretary, trailed at the third place with 1,82,893 which was just about 18% of the total votes polled. Aam Aadmi Party's journalist-turned-politician Ashish Khetan took the second spot with 2,90,642. The AAP vote share stood at 30%. The middle class, including a large contingent of government officials , seemed to have been swept by the "Modi wave" and went all out to oust Maken despite his campaign pitch about his clean image and development work.

A large share of middle class and lower middle class support went to former investigative journalist Ashish Khetan, who campaigned aggressively in Delhi's urban villages and slums. This parliamentary seat had sprung a surprise in December when Congress lost in all 10 assembly seats and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal sent Sheila Dikshit into exile in Kerala.

Birla can't fight Modi

Branded an outsider by rivals, Dalit leader Udit Raj defeated his nearest rival, Rakhi Birla of AAP, by over one lakh votes. Birla, however, managed to give Udit Raj a tough fight , trailing by about 1.6 lakh votes which is about 8 percentage points less than the BJP candidate. Right at the beginning, Congress' Krishna Tirath had virtually faded into the background. Both Birla and Udit Raj played the caste card. Birla made an emotional appeal while Udit Raj used the Modi factor. Birla, an MLA from Mongolpuri, fought under the shadow of Arvind Kejriwal's 49-day chaotic government and her promise of honest governance and development failed to do the trick. Udit Raj managed to get 46.4% of the votes while Birla got 38.6%. The Modi wave, a trend in the constituency's Jat-dominated villages, made all the difference. Tirath, a two-time MP, managed only a dismal 11.6% of the votes (1,57,468). She lost her deposit.

AAP's Sikh card fails

BJP's Parvesh Verma, son of former Delhi CM Sahib Singh Verma, won West Delhi by a record margin of 2.68 lakh, the highest victory margin in the city. Verma got 48.3% of the total vote share while AAP's Jarnail Singh was second with 28.4%. En bloc voting in Jat-dominated villages played a critical role in his victory. Congress' Mahabal Mishra, who was the MP, suffered a humiliating defeat, losing his deposit! Mishra, who is his party's Poorvanchali face, got just 1.9 lakh votes—14 .3% of the total votes polled. In 2009, Mishra had got 54.32% - 4.79 lakh votes - vote share whereas BJP's Jagdish Mukhi had got 39.72%.

The Poorvanchali vote bank, it seems, didn't side with him this time. He didn't even turn up at the community centre. And AAP failed to wean away Sikhs from BJP with a candidate from the community, Jarnail Singh. It, however, retained its support base in JJ clusters and unauthorized colonies. Though the result was clear after the fourth round, Verma sat at the centre till the end.

Gujjars see Bidhuri through

At 10.55am on Friday, during the fifth round of counting for South Delhi seat, BJP candidate Ramesh Bidhuri turned down requests for interview with 'abhi nahin' . Nervousness was apparent on the face of the three-time MLA from Tughlaqabad and the Gujjar face of BJP who was just 33,144 votes ahead of AAP candidate Devinder Sehrawat. He eventually defeated Sehrawat by a margin of 1,07,000. Bidhuri's victory was propelled largely by the Modi wave in urban pockets and his core supporters, the Gujjars, who have a significant presence here. He also benefitted from the splitting of Jat votes between the Congress and the AAP candidates who were from the community. Together, they polled over 5 lakh votes. AAP polled 3,90,980 (35.5%) votes while Congress's Ramesh Kumar, the sitting MP, was pushed to the third spot with 1, 25, 213 (11.4%). AAP held on to its vote bank in slums and resettlement colonies which have maximum migrant voters.

Muslim split helped Vardhan

A split in Muslim votes, coupled with a Modi wave, made Chandni Chowk an easy win for Dr Harsh Vardhan, chief ministerial candidate of BJP in the December assembly polls. He defeated AAP's Ashutosh by a margin of over 1.3 lakh votes, claiming 44.6% of the total votes and relegating the two-time MP from the constituency, Kapil Sibal of Congress, to third position. AAP got 30.7% while Congress got 17.9% of the vote share. In 2009, Sibal had 4.65 lakh votes in his kitty, 29,245 more than what Harshvardhan got this year. Facing Smriti Irani in 2004 to Vijender Gupta in 2009, Sibal had won with a margin of more than 2 lakh. This time he didn't even touch that mark, getting 1,75,619 votes. The constituency has a total Muslim population of around 2.9 lakh but the common perception that the minorities vote en bloc was belied. BJP was not entirely sure about Chandni Chowk and fielding Harsh Vardhan there was a gamble since he is the party's chief ministerial face.

Outsider actor makes inroads

Former DPCC head JP Agarwal made a quick exit from the counting centre early in the morning as the overwhelming lead of BJP candidate Manoj Tiwari, Bhojpuri actor and rank outsider, became evident. With a vote share of 5.9 lakh—a lead of 1.4 lakh over nearest rival, AAP's Anand Kumar—Tiwari was riding the Modi wave. This diluted the advantage that North East Delhi had held out for AAP with a 25-27 % Muslim population. The community turned out in strength, and many admitted voting for AAP, but middle class voters, along with the youth, blunted their impact. A turnout of 67.12%—second highest in Delhi—was the clinching factor. While Tiwari's vote share was 45.3%, AAP netted 34.3% with Congress trailing behind with only 16.3%. BJP's votes were almost as much as AAP and Congress combined. Agarwal had won by almost 2 lakh in 2009. He lost his deposit. AAP's Anand Kumar admitted the Modi wave was too strong to counter.

On a wing and a prayer

Because of its large Muslim and resettlement colony population, East Delhi was considered an AAP stronghold. However, riding high on the Modi wave, BJP first-timer Maheish Girri defeated AAP's Rajmohan Gandhi by 1.9 lakh votes. Congress' Sandeep Dikshit, a two-time MP, came third. The middle and upper middle class surge towards BJP is evident in the vote shares. While Girri polled 47.8% votes, Gandhi polled 31.9% and Dikshit was way behind at 17%. Despite having won five assembly seats in this seat last year, AAP lost with the second highest margin among the seven Delhi seats. Evidently, the slum votes and the split Muslim vote were insufficient to counter the middle class disillusionment with it. At a little over 2 lakh, Dikshit polled the second highest among the Congress candidates which is in sharp contrast to the last Lok Sabha poll when he had polled 5,18,001 votes and won against BJP's Chetan Chauhan by 2.4 lakh votes.

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Election results 2014: Rural belt swings it for BJP in Delhi

BJP's Mahesh Sharma won the seat, defeating his nearest rival Narendra Bhati of SP. BSP's Satish Awana and AAP's K P Singh came third and fourth respectively. Sharma rode an aggressive campaign in urban areas. Unlike in previous elections, the rural population in Dadri, Jewar, Sikanderabad and Khurja constituencies voted primarily for BJP this time.

R C Tomar's last minute defection to BJP from Congress made a huge difference—Muslim and Thakur votes in his name went to Sharma. BJP also managed to get votes from the Yadavs and Dalits—both fed up with the state's ruling party. AAP's Singh attributed his defeat to the party's inexperience, while BSP said that this time voters had prioritized development over caste.

Rao Inderjit holds his ground

Backed by a strong caste and urban vote bank, BJP's Rao Inderjit Singh won the seat, leaving his rivals—Congress's Rao Dharampal Singh and AAP's Yogendra Yadav—far behind. It was a hat-trick for Inderjit in Gurgaon. Barring the three assembly segments in Mewat—Nuh , Punahana and Ferozepur Jhirka—where Hussain got a good lead, Inderjit swept all other areas in Gurgaon and Rewari. Badshapur and Gurgaon assembly constituencies alone gave Inderjit a strong thrust, pushing him far ahead of Hussain. With the Haryana Janhit Congress losing its family bastion of Hisar, Inderjit is likely to eye the post of CM. AAP was hit the hardest with the defeat of its national face, Yadav. It is likely to shatter AAP's prospects in the impending assembly election.

Gujjars give BJP winning edge

BJP won back the Faridabad seat after a gap of 10 years with Krishan Pal Gurjar defeating the two-time sitting Congress MP, Avtar Singh Bhadana, by a landslide. Even in the Hathin assembly constituency, which has a sizeable Muslim presence, the BJP leader managed to get about 45,000 votes. In all constituencies, he outnumbered Bhadana, and the trend indicated how the Gujjar community rallied behind him. BJP's victories in Faridabad, Gurgaon and Mahendragarh-Bhiwani might threaten CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, as these have been Congress bastions so far. Gurjar has a low-key style of working and has had a non-controversial stint as state BJP chiefqualities that might make him BJP's CM candidate for Haryana in the next polls.

Gen inflicts crushing defeat

Riding the Modi wave, General (retd) V K Singh had the last laugh in Ghaziabad with a victory margin as impressive as Modi's 5.7 lakh in Vadodara. His clean image suited the anti-corruption plank on which the elections were fought. Political leaders in Ghaziabad also believe there was a consolidation of Rajput votes in favour of Singh, while the Muslim vote got split among Congress, SP and AAP, handing Singh the advantage. With the battle won, the general must look at the ground realities. Politically, he must fit into the shoes of BJP chief Rajnath Singh, whom he replaced in Ghaziabad; administratively, he will have to work towards developing the civic infrastructure of Ghaziabad, his biggest poll promise.

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Election results 2014: Clean sweep for BJP in Delhi

NEW DELHI: The saffron sweep didn't leave Delhi untouched. True to form, the Capital reflected the national mood, with all seven seats going to BJP while AAP finished second and Congress trailed at third.

BJP's campaign sought votes on a one-point Modi-for-PM agenda and its mix of newcomers and sitting MLAs rode on a massive pro-change wave that saw the party emerge victorious in a three-cornered contest.

For AAP, the results are sobering. The "quitter" tag stuck and failure to win a single seat in its "home base" is a significant setback and AAP's cohesiveness will be tested in the wake of its poor showing.

AAP can draw some satisfaction at replacing Congress as the alternative to BJP. It remains capable of surprising Congress and BJP if either slip up and is a threat to both.

Arvind Kejriwal's leadership will be tested when assembly elections are held as AAP can ill afford another setback after a Lok Sabha washout. Depending upon support in slums and among Muslims is a risky gambit.

The road back is harder for Congress, as its fortunes are linked to the national results. There is a serious danger of the party being edged out of Delhi's political equations.

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Conflict of interest in setting norms for pharmaceuticals in WHO

NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation's (WHO) work of setting up norms and standards for production of medicines seems to be flawed by a fundamental conflict of interest. At the heart of its standard setting work is an entity the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) in which majority of the WHO member countries have no voting rights and which is dominated by pharmaceutical industry groups. This glaring conflict of interest seems to fly in the face of WHO's policy on engagement with private entities which states that the development of norms, standards, policies and strategies which lies at the heart of WHO's work would be protected from influence by any form of vested interest.
To begin with, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), closely involved with ICH since its inception, hosts the ICH secretariat in Geneva. So, the two share the same address --15, chemin Louis-Dunant, PO Box 195, 1211 Geneva-20. IFPMA participates in the steering committee of the ICH as a non-voting member.
The six sponsors of ICH are the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries' Associations (EFPIA); the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (JMHLW) and the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA); and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). These six are the voting members of the ICH Steering Committee. Thus, ICH represents big multinational drug companies and 17 countries comprising 15% of the world's population and accounting for more than three quarter of the global pharmaceutical sales. The WHO, Health Canada and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) are just observers in ICH. When WHO gets influenced by ICH guidelines, these guidelines made by a small section becomes applicable to the bulk of the world's population without any of these populations having a say in their framing.
In the name of global cooperation, the ICH also invites representatives of many countries including India, China, Brazil and so on. But none of these countries have any participation in the decision-making process or any voting rights in the ICH. The ICH also does not have any representation of generic manufacturers from outside the ICH regions (EU, US and Japan) or members of the civil society, professional groups, patient or consumer advocacy groups.
ICH is primarily an attempt to harmonise drug approval requirements to enable industry to bring drugs into the market faster and start earning maximum revenue during the period the drug is under patent. Harmonisation helps prevent loss of patent period time and money on regulatory hurdles. However, most of the rhetoric on harmonization is about how ICH serves public interest by bringing new breakthrough or innovative drugs faster to patients. However, there has been wide-spread criticism that the drug industry, through the ICH, influences not only regulatory approvals mechanism for drugs introduction but also guidelines for pharmacovigilance in the form of post marketing surveillance and reporting of adverse drug reactions and guidelines for clinical trials, trying to relax the safety standards for trials. According to critics it would be naive to see the ICH process as involving purely technical matters as it also affects patients and consumers. Hence, there has been a push for greater public debate, scrutiny and accountability in the harmonization process.
A WHO publication of 2002 titled The Impact of ICH Guidelines in Non-ICH Countries stated: "In many countries, essential drugs required for the prevention and treatment of locally endemic conditions are not supplied by the major multinationals, but by local industry or by generic manufacturers. If these suppliers are unable to meet what may be unsubstantiated quality standards, the adverse impact of the withdrawal of these drugs on the health of the population might well be far more dramatic than that of any hypothetical risk posed by failing to achieve the ICH standards." Critics have also warned that harmonisation of regulatory standards is being used by the drug industry to create new entry barriers for drugs from the developing world to prevent competition.
The WHO document stated that although ICH countries import large quantities of pharmaceuticals from non-ICH countries with weak regulatory systems, many countries are led to think that adoption of the guidelines is a necessary move to gain access to the pharmaceutical markets of ICH countries." This "spontaneous" dissemination of ICH products is not necessarily consistent with national priorities and represents a pressure that may lead to diverting limited national resources to unnecessary expenses entailed by the adoption of more costly regulatory requirements," said the document.
The document further noted that "appropriate strategies for consultation and communication with Member States need to be developed to ensure that WHO is not seen as de facto automatically endorsing ICH products, but as providing advice on the potential impact of those products on non-ICH Member States". It added that ICH process has involved only 17 industrialized countries in the decision-making process, and that the views, priorities, and needs of the majority of WHO Member States have only sporadically been taken into consideration.Despite being aware of this conflict, the ICH has not been democratized or made more transparent in its working and it continues to influence WHO guidelines.
Yet, many of the ICH guidelines have become part of the WHO guidelines on pharmaceutical manufacture and registration process despite questions being raised about the guidelines of the WHO being influenced or even being decided by an organization which is primarily driven by business interests of association whose primary purpose is to protect their own commercial interests. WHO is yet to respond in any effective manner to these concerns. And in the upcoming World Health Assembly the WHO is pushing a resolution that urges member nations to implement relevant guidance and science-based outputs of international regulatory harmonization and convergence efforts and to use where applicable, the Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use.

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