India’s Parliament approved on Wednesday the bill which prohibits domestic drug companies from producing low-cost copies of expensive Western medicines, while India has 5.1 million HIV-infected people in extreme need of that treatment. By passing the new law, India tries to create all conditions for joining the World Trade Organization.

However, the law appeared not as limiting as the drug activists had feared.

"It’s very disappointing, but it could have been worse," said Daniel Berman, a coordinator of the global access campaign for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders. "All generics could have been removed from the market."

But relatively severe criteria for such copying can cause a rise in prices, predicted some activists. In such circumstances the only party that seems to profit from the law is multinational drug companies.

Royalties to be paid by generic producers to the patents holding companies also arouse great concern of the public. The new law does not provide any collar for royalty rates, as is done in many western countries.

"The government will have enormous powers to deal with any unusual price rise," said Commerce Minister Kamal Nath. But reality proves that the hard-lined market system very often turns such promises into leaves without figs.