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New York: The United Nations will turn out the lights at its New York Headquarters tomorrow night at 8:30 p.m. in observance of Earth Hour 2011, a global event aimed at promoting awareness of the need to take action on climate change.

The International Monetary Fund has introduced an analytical framework for assessing vulnerabilities and emerging risks in low-income countries (LICs) arising from changes in the global economy. The proposed Vulnerability Exercise for Low-Income Countries is intended to enable Fund staff to spot vulnerabilities and assess member countries’ resilience to emerging risks before they materialize, and thus help guide policy responses.

New York: As many as 1 million people have been driven from their homes in Côte d’Ivoire in the months-long turmoil stemming from the outgoing president’s refusal to leave office, with violence mounting and his loyalists using heavy weapons against civilians, a top United Nations official said today.

New Delhi: Both of the Houses of the Parliament have been adjourned sine die on Friday on the demand from the leaders of various political parties as many of them would be engaged in the ongoing poll process in five states and Union territories.

New Delhi: The Indian Defence Minister AK Antony called upon the top brass of the defence research body, DRDO to nurture talent and ensure “fairness at all levels” in order to realise the organisation’s goals.

New Delhi: The Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, in a gesture of goodwill, has invited Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and the country’s Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani to watch the India-Pakistan semi-final match of the World Cup in Mohali in Punjab (in India) on March 30.

New Delhi: The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has planned to facilitate India’s cooperation with the African continent.

On Day 1 (March 12), they first dismissed it as a minor accident, which would be brought quickly under control by Japan’s highly advanced nuclear industry. On Day 2, when there was an explosion in Reactor 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which had been starved of coolant water, they called it “a purely chemical reaction and not a nuclear emergency as described by some sections of the media”. One of them even said, “there is no nuclear accident or incident” in Japan. “It is a well-planned emergency preparedness programme which the nuclear operators … company are carrying out to contain the residual heat after the plants had an automatic shutdown.”

For all the success which the BJP and the Left have had in cornering the Congress over the financial swindles and Wikileaks, they are unlikely to look forward eagerly to the forthcoming state assembly elections to boost their positions. The reason is that neither group is expected to do sufficiently well in them to be able to spice up their anti-Congress campaign. Instead, it is the latter which will probably be in a position to claim that the voters have paid no heed to the diatribes against it.

BEIJING - Thirty years of successful reform have turned the People's Republic of China (PRC) into the world's second largest economy but the challenge now is to sustain growth while avoiding the middle income trap, Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haruhiko Kuroda said today.