View Articles

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - Isolated nomadic herder families in Mongolia who are struggling to survive amidst an unfolding natural disaster are to receive support from the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund.

Who after Parkash Singh Badal? Is the ruling Akali leadership's confrontationist attitude towards the Congress-led UPA government and Punjab Congress leaders undergoing a change? One need not scratch one's head to answer the first question. Sukhbir Singh Badal is destined to inherit his father Parkash Singh's political legacy. The second question is still in the realm of speculation though some recent developments indicate the possibility of a change in Akali leadership's attitude.

NEW DELHI: Indian Government expects concrete discussions at the coming BRIC Summit in Brasilia on April 16 which will be the second one following the first summit held in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in June 2009. This BRIC group Brazil, Russia, India and China have yet to achieve the process of consolidation taking advantage of their economic strength in the post global financial crisis period and the second Summit will offer the opportunity to take a close look at the global economy after the crisis and how these four countries can play more meaningful role by pooling their huge resources in bringing back the global economy into growth path.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - A hydropower project supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the governments of Austria and Japan that will enable Bhutan to export clean energy to India has been registered as the first cross-border initiative under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

After months of dithering over supply constraints, denials of the inexorable march of double-digit food prices, and dismissing it as a passing phenomenon on way out, the Centre hit upon the strategy of tossing the problem to the States for a collective assault on the hitherto largely neglected agricultural productivity along with the related problems of prices and markets.

Tug of war is a rather strong term to describe the widening schism between the Congress establishment led by Sonia Gandhi and the UPA government's dominant reform group under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Tug of war implies repeated tie by those with equal strength and force. With Sonia Gandhi's overawing grip over the Congress organization and the respect she enjoys among the party workers, all those sitting in South and North Blocs together cannot be a match to her - like the Upanishadic 'purnam eva avashishyate' (Brahman remains in his fullness even if the entire universe is taken away from him).

KOLKATA: In recent times, the joint operation by central and state police forces in West Bengal against the Maoists in Southwest Bengal districts has been partially successful. Home Minister P. Chidambaram's visit to Lalgarh on April 4 gave a boost to the morale of the security forces fighting naxals.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Swedish Riksbank have signed an agreement to provide the Fund with up to €2.47 billion (about US$3.3 billion).

New York: More than a month after the United Nations and its aid partners appealed for $34 million to respond to the food crisis in Guatemala, less than 10 per cent of that amount has been received, prompting UN officials to express concern over the plight of the estimated 680,000 people in need.

The Executive Boards of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) have deemed, on a preliminary assessment, that the Union of the Comoros is eligible for assistance under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The assessment is a step towards forgiveness of the majority of the country's foreign debt stock, which is estimated at US$285.9 million as of end-2009 (US$248.8 million in net present value (NPV) terms).