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WASHINGTON, DC ─ The World Bank has approved $430 million to finance the Mumbai Urban Transport Project 2A to further improve the suburban railway system in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region - one of the world's largest urban center with a population of 18 million in 2001. The Bank's Board also approved $350 million to finance the Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project which aims to improve the safety and sustainable performance of over 220 selected dams in India.

New Delhi: Indian rural scene still presents a picture that is well-stricken in poverty and all sorts of sufferings the origin of which lies nowhere else but in very low level of governance which tends to no governance at all. Human predicaments in the rural areas are perceivable in totality for those who have eyes to perceive. But then it is so ugly that very few people dare to see it without a veil. There are many people who see the villagers differently - for example, politicians see the villages as vote banks spread all over; wealth seekers see as the repository of overground and underground wealth for exploitation; a kind of breed that in interested in minting money in the name of their plight; a lately a new kind of people are on the increase who romanticize the rural areas for their so called beauties to attract people into the area in the name of tourism - and even sex-tourism, threatening now the very culture and ecosystems of the area. Not to mention here the extremist problem, that the villagers are suffering on account of being their areas turned into haven of extremists and a battlefield in which they are trapped in the crossfire of extremists and security forces.

NEW DELHI: With textiles and clothing industry being one of the mainstays of the national economy, this sector is one of the largest contributor towards exports and at current prices the textiles industry is pegged at US$ 64 billion, of which 64% services domestic demand.

The contrast between BP's response to the outrage over the oil spill in the US and Union Carbide Corporation's attitude to the uproar over the Bhopal disaster couldn't have been sharper. Confronted by a furious public and a President who vows to make it pay every penny lost by US citizens, BP has pledged $20 billion (Rs 95,000 crores) in initial remediation. It's mobilising another $50 billion—although under a law similar to our own nuclear liability Bill, BP's legal liability is only $75 million. As a symbolic gesture, BP also skipped its annual dividend payment.

Even as the latest round of Indo-Pakistani talks was getting under way in Islamabad, two Pakistanis were caught in Zimbabwe, who were trying to sneak into South Africa with fake passports. Given their suspected links with 26/11, their intention evidently was to carry out a terrorist strike on the World Cup football games.

In a sense, the so-called bold move of the UPA Government to begin decontrol of petroleum products, irrespective of the country going through high inflation, was timed ahead of the Toronto Summit of G-20 which had last year advocated phasing out of fuel subsidies. No doubt, it contributes to deficit reduction and adds to the comfort of the Finance Minister with his focus on fiscal consolidation and growth. It hardly matters if millions of Indians, already bearing the brunt of a prolonged spell of double-digit food prices, leading to general inflation, have to endure some more pain. They can be continually fed with hopes of prices easing some time or the other.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to the Russian Federation has said in a concluding statement that the authorities responded forcefully to the global financial crisis, taking full advantage of the considerable buffers that had been afforded to them by the prudent policy of taxing and saving much of the oil revenue windfall and by the attendant large increase in reserves. Looking ahead, our main concern is that withdrawing the fiscal stimulus will be exceedingly difficult, not least because the budget has become far less flexible amid significant increases in permanent spending. Failure to do so as cyclical conditions normalize would cause significant upward pressure on the real exchange rate.

Dubai, UAE - A new regional report on HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: “Time for Strategic Action”, produced by the World Bank in collaboration with UNAIDS and WHO, brings together, for the first time, a comprehensive collection of evidence on HIV epidemic in the MENA region.

WASHINGTON - The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors has approved four credits totaling US$456.5 million in support of Vietnam's development efforts. This brings the total of World Bank lending to Vietnam this fiscal year (see below *1) to US$2.13 billion, a record figure.

WASHINGTON - The World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved a financing credit to the Republic of Moldova in the amount of US$ 25 million for an Economic Recovery Development Policy Operation. The main objective of this credit is to adequately fund priority expenditures for economic recovery and social protection during fiscal correction, and lay the foundations for a sustained post-crisis recovery in Moldova through exports and private investment.