View Articles

Just as the United Progressive Alliance government seems set, awkwardly and belatedly, to concede the Opposition’s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G-telecom spectrum scam, it has been hit by another scandal, this time involving the Department of Space (DoS) and a private company, Devas Multimedia Private Limited.

L.K. Advani is apparently still unable to make up his mind whether to retain his original hardline image or remake himself as a moderate a la Atal Behari Vajpayee. As he probably knows himself, the hawkish instincts come naturally to him. Hence, his appeal to the saffron cadres during the Ramjanmabhoomi movement when Vajpayee was excoriated as “half a Congressman” by Sadhvi Rithambara.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - The Asian Development Bank's (ADB's) Board of Directors has approved a $1 billion financial support facility that will help improve clean water access for three million families in Viet Nam, including half a million poor households who will receive their own piped water connection for the first time.

New Delhi: The former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, Dr. Shashi Tharoor today suggested that India should try to use the United Nations mechanism to check the terrorists’ activities from the soil of its neighbour Pakistan.

New Delhi: The rapidly growing urban population has led to tremendous pressure on civic infrastructure and essential services. As per 65th round of the National Sample Survey, 74% of urban households are served by piped water supply, leaving 26 % population to be covered by other sources like tube wells and hand pumps etc. The sanitation rating conducted for 423 class I cities brought out the fact that drinking water samples from only 39 cities qualified on all three basic tests conducted to check water quality at consumer end: turbidity, residual chlorine and Thermo Tolerant Coliform bacteria (TTC).

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mission has said in its conclusion statement that growth is finally resuming in Montenegro. After contracting 22 months, industry began to grow again in the second half of 2010, and tourism registered a relatively strong rebound during the summer of 2010. Going forward, the recovery is projected to gain momentum, supported by high world prices and demand for Montenegro’s industrial exports, new tourism projects, and increased confidence in the financial system. Accordingly, real GDP is projected to grow some 2 percent in 2011 after an estimated 1.1 percent in 2010, while inflation is expected to remain below the level of trading partners.

The Czech economy has rebounded from the downturn owing to its strong fundamentals and the global recovery, says IMF mission in its conclusion statement. It says, 'Low public debt, comfortable external position, and a stable financial sector contained the decline in output, while deep economic integration with the euro area allowed the Czech economy to benefit from the recovery of trading partners, particularly Germany. Spillovers from the debt crisis in the euro area periphery into the Czech Republic have been minor due to limited real and direct financial linkages, as well as high capital and liquidity buffers of Czech banks.'

Papua New Guinea has enjoyed 10 years of solid economic growth, says International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a mission concluding statement which included its preliminary findings. An unprecedented achievement for the country that owes a lot to greater political stability, sound macroeconomic policies, and improved public finances, the mission says. Higher commodity prices and the construction of a PNG LNG project—a 190 percent of GDP investment—are boosting an economy facing capacity constraints. As a result, rising consumer and asset price inflation is threatening macro-economic stability. To lower the risk of overheating firmer fiscal and monetary policies are required.

New York: The top United Nations human rights official today voiced deep concern at the harsh sentencing of Vasil Parfyankou in the first of dozens of trials against opposition leaders and supporters in Belarus.

New York: The head of the United Nations agency tasked with preserving the world's cultural heritage and promoting education today highlighted the importance of mother languages, stressing their role as sources of human knowledge and creativity, and vehicles of cultural expression.