View Articles

Mid-2011, the world economy is battered by a host of challenges, fiscal and monetary, as post-crisis recovery slows - fiscal imbalances, weakened consumer and business confidence and unrelenting joblessness (USA), the protracted sovereign debt crisis in euro-zone periphery threatening a contagion across borders, and the toll on Japan’s economy and neighbourhood from its natural disasters.

New York: Twelve nations and the European Union today added their signatures to a United Nations treaty on the equitable sharing of the planet’s genetic resources in a ceremony at UN Headquarters.

The Government of India in the Ministry of External Affairs has embarked on establishment of a nationwide database of all international relations scholars and experts. The measure has been taken in partnership with the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Jadhavapur Association of International Relations. To begin with, a closed Google mail group has been created to enable empanelled scholars to start interacting with each other to develop a close rapport with the Ministry in the Public Diplomacy Division.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fight against corruption will be the main agenda of our government’s 100-day programme, thundered Chief Minister Oommen Chandy while announcing the plan of action. However, its subsequent actions hardly match its words.

LUCKNOW: The Congress Party has launched a major offensive against Mayawati government on various fronts including farmers, bad governance, rise in incidents of rape and assaults on women especially dalits to emerge as front runner and eventually form the government through Mission 2012.

BHOPAL: Hundreds of buses, truck and tractor trolleys were pressed into service to bring Muslims from different parts of the state to participate in a programme organised at Bhopal to felicitate the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan. The Minority Cell of the State BJP was the organiser of the programme.

Sonia Gandhi’s pet jholawalas in the National Advisory Council seem to have recovered from the shock of being upstaged by Anna Hazare’s saffron-tinged do-gooders. Yet, not long ago, it was the NAC which was driving the social reforms agenda – shooting down development projects in Orissa’s Niyamgiri hills so as not to disturb the pristine hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the tribals. Or, pressing for a “universal” food security bill at astronomical costs.

NEW DELHI: The ten year old proposal for the setting up of a 2000 km long deepwater transnational gas pipeline from Oman to India for transporting natural gas sourced from Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar, has been revived. As per the present plan, the pipeline will originate from Oman and will end either in Gujarat or Maharashtra.

There are fresh signs of stirrings in the hitherto relatively calm waters of Haryana Congress politics. The outgoing fortnight’s two developments indicate this. One was reshuffle of the cabinet. The other was dropping of Transport Minister O.P. Jain and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Zile Ram Sharma from the ministry by the Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in a jobs-for-money case.

New York: An estimated 80 per cent of the world’s refugees now live in developing countries and yet anti-refugee sentiment is growing in many industrialized nations, the United Nations said in a report unveiled today, urging the richer States to address the deep imbalance.