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MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing Indonesia with a $100 million loan to finance community-driven projects that upgrade basic infrastructure in rural villages and improve sanitation services in poor urban neighborhoods.

In this era of mega scams and rampant corruption, Haryana’s ‘experienced” politicians seldom disappoint the people. They enliven the controversies by taking on their opponents by adopting self-contradictory stands. The latest example is the controversy over the leasing out of the under-acquisition five acres of panchayat land of Ulhawas village in Gurgaon district to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) by granting change of land use (CLU).

The Congressional debate, disagreement and compromise on the US government debt ceiling apart, the Standard & Poor’s downgrading of the sovereign rating of the United States of America (USA), the world’s largest economy, is at best a hoax call that may be intended to warn the world about the possible consequences of a poor US debt management. The rating certainly does not reflect the reality of the intrinsic strength of the US economy and US dollar’s pervasive influence on the global economy. Although the USA’s debt-to-GDP ratio is quite high, almost 100 per cent after the congress and the senate approved a compromise formula to raise the sovereign debt ceiling, there are other rich OECD countries which have higher debt-to-GDP ratio.

LUCKNOW: The political environment in Uttar Pradesh is now surcharged with the possibility of the Chief Minister Mayawati calling for assembly elections much before the scheduled time in May 2012. High level BSP sources indicated that the CM is seriously considering the option of early dissolution of the state assembly and holding of elections in the early part of 2012.

One need not take the verdicts of the credit rating agencies too seriously. Quite often, their judgements have been opportunistic in a situation when things have already gone bad. Most often, they fall way behind developments as it happened during the early phases of global financial meltdown when all credit rating agencies were gleefully unaware of the wretched net value of large amounts of derivative and other products held by banks and financial institutions.

Sonia Gandhi’s written instructions before leaving for United States to undergo a surgery for an undisclosed ailment that four leaders including Rahul Gandhi will look after party affairs in her absence signals a transition in which her son will play a dominant role in running the affairs of the party. Happily she underwent surgery successfully at New York’s Sloan-Kettering hospital but she is likely to remain out of action for quite sometime. Her stay may be more than two or three weeks in New York, she needs time for recuperation even after return to Delhi. Congress insiders’ guess is that she may be fit enough in six months time to resume her full responsibilities as the Congress president.

The dramatic announcement on Friday by the Standard & Poor’s downgrading the triple AAA rating of the world’s largest economy has led to a fresh global turmoil with the threat of another recession in the United States becoming real. Global stocks were already in deep plunge before the S&P decision and now the embattled US economy is sure to increase the woes of the euro zone sovereign debt crisis further.

New Delhi: India has described the recent downgrading of US economy by the global credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) as a “grave situation,” while the apex industry body, FICCI has said the US situation coupled with the trouble in the Euro Zone, slowdown in manufacturing and services sectors in China and contraction of Japanese economy would adversely impact India’s exports earnings.

New York: As thousands of desperately malnourished children from famine-wracked Somalia pour into United Nations refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, small sachets of a peanut-based paste are often all that stands between them and almost certain death.

New York: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has designated the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik, as a “City of Literature” in recognition of its efforts to preserve, disseminate and promote its rich literary heritage.