View Articles

India enters the new fiscal year (2010-11) amid high inflation, an uncertain outlook for the targeted growth (8.5 per cent), as it depends largely on a normal monsoon with a rebound in agriculture, and a patchy record in social and economic development in the first three years of the 11th five-year plan. Striking improvements in infrastructure are yet to be sighted while risks remain for global economy from instability in the financial system and weak post-recession recovery in highly-indebted advanced economies, to make external environment less promising.

Never mind the disturbing UN report crediting India as home To world's largest number of poor living on less than one dollar per day, Indians are among the world's top billionaires. IIM interns bag Rs. 1-crore-plus annual pay package at in-campus job placement mela. Corporate head honchos get fat 'pity bonuses' to cover the shortfall in the performance-linked annual remuneration due to lower sales and profit growth. Senior executives are given further pay hikes to keep their morale high in the year when the government is made to spend thousands of crores as economic booster to combat recession and protect lower level jobs.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a successor one-year arrangement for Mexico under the Flexible Credit Line (FCL) in an amount equivalent to SDR 31.528 billion (about US$48 billion). The Mexican authorities stated they intend to treat the arrangement as precautionary and do not intend to draw on the line.

New York: Sexual violence during conflicts is all too often downplayed and treated as part of local cultural traditions instead of being viewed as a war crime, a senior United Nations official has warned as she called for much greater international action to defeat the scourge.

New York: Nearly one quarter of the world's 1,000 biggest cities in China, whose urban population is growing rapidly, according to a new statistical report issued by the United Nations.

New York: The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Japan and a Nigerian cassava processing group signed an agreement to support a project to improve cassava processing in a bid to enhance the quality and value of food in the African country.

Executive Directors concurred that the impact of the global financial crisis on Syria has been relatively moderate. Preliminary data for 2009 indicate that non-oil growth decelerated as lower growth in most sectors was only partially offset by a moderate recovery in agriculture. Inflation declined sharply, reflecting trends in the global prices of basic commodities.

The Senegalese economy should begin a gradual rebound this year after two years of slower than usual growth resulting from both external and domestic shocks. Real GDP growth, which averaged about 2 percent in 2008 and 2009, is expected to pick up to close to 3½ percent. However, the outlook remains uncertain, with risks that the global recovery will be more hesitant than expected, the threat of renewed problems in the energy sector, and financing constraints that limit the government's fiscal room for maneuver. Annual inflation, which has been negative for more than six months, is expected to gradually return to about 2 percent.

New York: The rate of deforestation has slowed over the last 10 years, but each year an area roughly the size of Costa Rica is still destroyed, according to a comprehensive forest review by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

New York: Slavery and slavery-like practices still continue in many parts of the world, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned calling for renewed international commitment to ensure that all forms of slavery are finally eradicated.