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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is extremely difficult to pack the first 100 days in office with so many controversial and unpopular decisions. But that is exactly what the United Democratic Front (UDF) Government has managed to do!

New York: The United Nations agricultural agency today called for greater efforts bring the food crisis in the Horn of Africa under control, saying that famine conditions had spread to a sixth area in Somalia, putting an estimated 750,000 people in the country at risk of starvation over the next four months.

An Asia-Pacific regional trade policy course for officials began on 5 September 2011, with the Indian Foreign Trade Institute’s WTO Studies Centre as a partner. WTO chief Pascal Lamy was in Delhi to open it.

New York: The leaders of two of Somalia's semi-autonomous regions today committed to a peaceful settlement of their dispute and adopted a four-point plan to ensure that hostilities between the two territories do not recur, the United Nations political office for the country said.

New York: With support from the United Nations, Iran today became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to phase out metered dose inhalers — used to treat asthma and other pulmonary ailments — and based on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh may boost the bilateral relationship, but there is less likelihood of an agreement on sharing of waters of river Teesta being signed.

India’s public sector banks have made huge strides since the days of nationalization. They now handle unrecognizably large deposits compared with the pre-nationalisation days; they have far greater resilience in terms of capital base and own funds; they are offering varied products to their customers; and, the public sector banks handle no less than 80% of all banking transactions in the country.

In sharp contrast to some other states including Maharashtra and Bihar which often face locals-outsiders conflicts, Punjab is perhaps India’s lone state which has been frequently hit by religion-related controversies though the pattern of Punjab’s controversies has undergone a change in the last six decades. In the 1950s and 1960s it was the controversy over the Akali Dal’s demand for a Sikh majority Punjabi Suba which used to generate communal tensions which later helped create a conducive environment for the foreign backed separatist-terrorists to spread terror. But after the curbing of terrorism in the nineties, such controversies stopped disturbing the state’s communal peace.

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party’s Uttar Pradesh state President Akhilesh Yadav will lead the Rath Yatra in the state from September 12 to mobilize the people of the state against the misrule of the Mayawati Government for defeating it in the assembly elections in 2012. This Samajwadi Kranti Rath Yatra will start from Lucknow. Massive preparations are on to make it a big success.

Earlier training packages to the rural population in India have miserably failed. Most of the efforts in this regard flowed down the drain mainly on account of changing trend in rural requirement and continuously shifting government policies. It has changed the very configuration of rural employment opportunities. Many skills earlier considered important has been lately rendered almost useless. Rural industries are progressing at a snail’s pace and therefore could not accommodate even already skilled persons.