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New Delhi: The number of underweight children in India is highest because of the large population base of the country. The problem of malnutrition is multi-dimensional and inter-sectoral in nature. Therefore, a coordinated and multi sectoral approach is needed to tackle the problem of malnutrition and resultant morbidity which may lead to mortality in certain cases of severe acute malnutrition. A single sector or scheme cannot address the problem of malnutrition.

NEW DELHI: More than sixty years after Independence, it remains a matter of conjecture how far and how much equality has been achieved between working men and working women in India's labour market.

Sometimes a single event exposes the deficiencies and the rot that have set in the system. This is what the premature retirement sought by a senior IAS officer last week has done. He blamed the Akali-BJP government for subjecting him to “mental trauma and humiliation” for seeking stoppage of illegal operations of buses of the ruling Badal family-owned transport company.

If 1989 saw the end of the “Second World” with Communism’s demise, then 2009 saw the end of what was known as the “Third World”: We are now in a new, fast-evolving multipolar world economy – where North and South, East and West, are now points on a compass, not economic destinies.

Singapore -The six major energy-using countries of East Asia could stabilize their greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 without compromising growth, a new World Bank report has found.

New York: The highest United Nations official in Afghanistan today recommended the release of international assistance for parliamentary elections to be held later this year, following a meeting with President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials in which new senior election commission members were appointed and a question about women candidates clarified.

New York: The top United Nations official in Asia and the Pacific has urged Governments in the region to develop stronger ties with the private sector to spur economic growth and provide better services to the public through improved infrastructure.

The world economic slide may have been reversed as signs of recovery, however weak and uneven, have begun to emerge in advanced economies (USA, Eurozone and Japan) and the global financial crisis may seem to be over, though lending by banks remains weak for robust job-creating recovery, especially in USA. Asia, on a faster rebound, takes over as the principal locomotive for the world economy in 2010 and probably for the near future as the richer world is on slow, tortuous growth with awesome challenges of lowering huge public debt levels and groping their way toward a semblance of fiscal soundness. World trade is picking up albeit moderately.

Political star gazing is always a risky job in India. But one can safely make a few predictions about the government's economic initiatives in the next few weeks. Let the budget session end, and there will be a high-pitch build-up in favour of total deregulation and liberalization of the financial sector to allow foreign participation and for removal of FDI cap in infrastructure. Economists, familiar media figures and think tanks will soon come up with articles extolling the virtues of building more and more highways, power plants, airports, ports and mines to meet the GDP growth target.

New York: United Nations officials have called on Member States and private donors to support a trust fund to pay for a permanent memorial at United Nations Headquarters in New York to the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.