MULTINATIONALS IN THE INDIAN DRUG INDUSTRY 79 health problems that can be made more tolerable by the regular use of steriods, antihypertensives, and other types of drugs.1 Now, there are a number of reports including the Report of the British Monopoly Commission, Senator Edward Kennedy's Report, the UNGTAD report, the Report submitted by the United Nations, and the report of the Hathi committee which have confirmed and widened Kefauver's findings. In India, the Hathi Committee after having studied the activities of the drug monopolies, recommended the nationalization of foreign and Indian monopoly drug companies. Strangely, neither has this been implemented, nor has the government curbed even those activities of the multinationals for which they have been severely dealt with in their home countries. Rather, the multinationals have been able to enforce a "code of discipline" on the government and their employees, and all policies like the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) and the Monopoly Restriction and Trade Practice Act (MRTP) remain paper tigers. Multinationals in the Third World Before evaluating the role of drug companies, it is essential to have some idea of the operations of multinationals in the Third World. A few hundred companies, more powerful than most nations, now dominate the economies in the capitalist world, through their centralised control over capital, skills, raw materials and finished products. In doing this with the motive of maximising profits, they undermine the power of host governments to control inflation, maintain employment, mobilize resources or meet the priorities set for development. In countries like India, multinationals operate through subsidiaries, which are registered in India according to Indian Company Law. At present the total production of multinationals is estimated to be greater than the GNP of any country other than the United States. The direct investment of multinationals abroad comes to around 400,000 million dollars, nearly one half of which is accounted for by US based companies.'2 To facilitate their growth, all help is rendered by the US banks. A study by Business International noted that "in 1965, 20 (US) banks had a total of 211 foreign locations. Seven years later, the number had leaped to 700 offices across the planet'3.3 The country-wise distribution of the top 50 multinationals is given in Table I.