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WASHINGTON - Africa’s farmers and agribusinesses could create a trillion-dollar food market by 2030 if they can expand their access to more capital, electricity, better technology and irrigated land to grow high-value nutritious foods, and if African governments can work more closely with agribusinesses to feed the region’s fast-growing urban population, according to a new World Bank report launched today.

On a day this February when newspapers front-paged Afzal Guru’s family’s lament over being denied his remains for burial, the sports pages had a story on off-spinner Pervez Rasool, a cricketing sensation from Kashmir, who staked claim to a Test cap with a spell that tore through the Australian batting in Chennai recently.

Some events have the potential of changing political equations. They also reflect changes taking place in standards of public life. The outcome of the Moga by-election was among such events.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) toughened measures to battle fraud and corruption in 2012, as complaints reached a new annual high.

Allocation of funds is not the only criteria for a national Budget. Usually a good Budget is a major policy document of the Government prescribing a way forward for achieving desired objectives like economic growth or employment generation and earmarking suitable expenditure for the same. In resource mobilization care is taken not to burden the common man.

NEW DELHI: In his 2013-14 budget, Finance Minister P Chidambaram offered sops to the power sector which are only of immediate requirement. The long-term approach is still left to be done in the sector. The government’s vision about energy, it seems, is impeded by a slow growth rate of the economy, even as it also is troubled by the needs for more revenue generation.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It’s a double whammy for Kerala. The State’s fond hopes that the Union Budget will redeem it unlike the Railway Budget have been dashed to the ground.

In November 2010, the BJP stalled Parliament for 21 days demanding a JPC probe into the 2G spectrum scam, making it one of the most unproductive sessions ever. The Congress was unbending in its stance that the investigation into the 2G scandal through the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), headed by a leader of the BJP, Murli Manohar Joshi, was adequate. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal only conceded a parliamentary debate, which, he said, would allow for “doodh ka doodh aur pani ka pani.”

LUCKNOW: The recent announcement of a new team by the state BJP president LK Bajpai has created more problems for the party at a time when Lok Sabha polls are not far away.

BHOPAL: Obviously with an eye on the forthcoming Vidhan Sabha elections in the state, due nine months from now in November this year, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has been dishing out gifts for all and sundry. Of late, he is not announcing schemes or programmes that would bring development to the state and benefit the people indirectly or in the long run. He is simply pushing cash into the pockets of the people. Most of the announcements are intended to benefit the people directly and that, too, in terms of money.