International

New York: With climate change presaging natural mega-disasters, aid workers facing mounting attacks in conflict areas and the economic crisis crimping resources, the United Nations office coordinating the global humanitarian response announced its agenda for 2011 today: more lives saved, more rapidly, with fewer gaps and less duplication.

New York: Women continue to reap less benefits from employment in agriculture than men in rural areas, and the recent global financial and food crises have slowed down progress towards gender equality in farming-related labour, three United Nations agencies said in a joint report unveiled today.

New York: The United Nations health agency today called for action to reduce the exposure of children to the marketing of food with high contents of fat, sugar or salt, which exposed them to the risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCD) caused by poor diet during their lives.

New York: The economic upturn in most Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2010 fuelled a 0.6 percentage point drop in unemployment – from 8.1 per cent in 2009 to 7.5 per cent – and is expected to lead to a further decrease of between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points this year, the United Nations reported today.

New Delhi: India will aggressively promote transgenic agriculture but will also adequately take care about the concerns relating to health and environment, said Ashwani Kumar while taking charge as the Union minister for science and technology and earth sciences on Friday.

New Delhi: A leading Parliamentarian and spokesperson of the ruling Congress Party Manish Tewari urged the international community for “acceptable rules of the game” and “a global space coordinating agency” to prevent militarisation of space.

New Delhi: India is planning to promote a wide range of niche tourism products like golf, wellness and medical tourism.

New Delhi: Government has planned to promote Safe and Honourable Tourism. The Tourist Police Organisation (TPO) will be enlarged with the involvement of state governments to ensure the safety of tourists.

New York: The year 2010 ranked as the warmest on record – together with 2005 and 1998 – according to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which added that last year also witnessed a large number of extreme weather events, including the heat wave in Russia and the devastating floods in Pakistan.

New Delhi: The government will introduce in Parliament in the upcoming Budget session Coal Regulator Bill to ensure level playing field for the private and the public sector.