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New York: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over reports that demonstrators in Kyrgyzstan had seized a Government building and urged them to show restraint and respect the rule of law.

The announcement that the United Progressive Alliance will reconstitute the National Advisory Council under Ms Sonia Gandhi has not come a day too soon. The original NAC died a premature death primarily because Ms Gandhi quit it and also resigned her Lok Sabha seat in the wake of the office-of-profit controversy. Her long absence from the NAC deprived it of its authority. Now that the law has been amended to exempt the NAC from the scope of offices-of-profit, it's entirely appropriate that the Council be formed again to counsel the UPA on fulfilling its promise—made before the 2004 general elections, and reiterated in 2009—to bring about “inclusive growth” in which the aam aadmi has a vital stake.

Sonia Gandhi's return as the head of the National Advisory Council does not augur well for fiscal discipline. Along with her band of socialists like Mani Shankar Aiyar, who never fails to mock India's high growth rate, Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze and Harsh Mander, there is every chance of an energetic advocacy of populist measures based on a reckless doling out of money in the name of the poor.

New York: United Nations aid agencies and their partners in Niger has appealed for an additional $132.9 million to fund humanitarian programmes in the West African country, which is facing a severe food crisis following poor harvests caused by inadequate rainfall last year.

The global financial crisis has continued to affect Cameroon's economy through weak external demand for the country's main export commodities, a decline in average international oil prices in 2009 compared with 2008, and delays in foreign direct investments. As a result, economic activity, the fiscal accounts, and the external current account have been adversely impacted. The impact was, however, less severe than originally anticipated, owing to the authorities' appropriate policy response, the Fund financial support under the rapid access component of the Exogenous Shocks Facility, and the global recovery now underway. Economic growth slowed to 2.0 percent in 2009 from 2.9 percent in 2008.

The Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations, ambitiously launched at the start of the 21st century, is yet to see the end of the tunnel, after almost a decade of frustrating official-level negotiating processes mainly over freeing up trade in agriculture and industrial goods with due safeguards for poorer countries. Overall, none of the leading players seems willing to translate their oft-repeated political commitments into give-and-take offers to bridge the numerous gaps in negotiating drafts on the table.

Is the Kashmir situation taking a new direction? The question gains importance in view of the happenings taking place on different fronts. For instance, terrorist activities which had witnessed a sharp decline are again on the rise. The ISI-backed militant organizations operating in Kashmir are changing their strategy not only to mount attacks but also to replenish their depleted ranks.

BHOPAL: Factionalism plaguing the main Opposition party, the Congress, again surfaced during the Budget session of the State Assembly.

New York: Three United Nations agencies are hailing what they described as a “ground-breaking” new act that legalizes the right to free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of 6 and 14 in India.

When senior judges from high court and session's court rob poor provident fund members of their contributions, educated specialist medical practitioners cheat their helpless patients, including infants, with impunity, education departments and deemed universities cheat students with false information, municipal corporation loots crores of rupees from the treasury by maintaining A roster of huge number of ghost employees, banks, mutual funds and insurance companies cheat depositors and policy holders and the central and state government allow fake weights and measures flood the market to help cheat every citizen of the country, will it be wrong to conclude that 'greed' is ruling and ruining the Indian society and the country is fast turning into a nation of cheats?