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Although the economic recession in Belgium was less severe than the euro area average, the recovery is expected to be gradual and fragile, with unusually high uncertainty. The near term outlook is clouded by a sluggish rebound in both domestic and external demand, rising unemployment, and growing public debt. Early action is crucial to restore fiscal sustainability, further reinforce financial stability, and intensify labor and product market reforms to boost competitiveness and growth prospects.

The foregoing fortnight has witnessed three important developments which will have implications for Kashmir, terrorism and India-Pakistan relations. First is Pakistan's belligerent attitude towards India using Kashmir as its main plank. Second is the use of double standards by Pakistani rulers in the fight against terrorism. Third is the now not too invisible mediator's role the Obama Administration has increasingly started playing making Kashmir problem's solution a pre-requisite for normalizing relations between India and Pakistan.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - The Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is to receive grants of $3.1 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Nordic Development Fund to help the country become more climate resilient in the face of droughts, floods and other extreme weather events.

The bitter battles over the Women's reservation bill have again ended in a hopeless deadlock without any immediate winners or losers. But the intrigues and subplots the tussles left behind signal the kind of emerging conspiratorial politics. In the past 14 years, we had so many world women's days. Why is such a much-deferred bill being pushed now? Thereby hangs a tale of the first brinkmanship that had, however, badly boomeranged on its original sponsors.

LUCKNOW: The Congress has launched a scathing attack on the BSP government for poor implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), as Trustee of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), has signed a borrowing agreement with the Government of Canada, through which Canada will provide the PGRT with SDR 500 million (about US$769 million) in new loan resources for low-income countries.

The Vanuatu economy weathered the global economic crisis well and is expected to recover gradually over the near term. Growth slowed in 2009 across all sectors and is estimated at 3¼ percent. The deceleration in service activity, however, was cushioned by resilient tourism, which benefited from a shift by travelers from Australia and New Zealand to short-haul destinations such as Vanuatu due to the global downturn.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Reserve Bank of India have signed an agreement under which the Reserve Bank of India would purchase up to US$10 billion in IMF notes.

New Delhi: Bids for construction of hospital and medical college complex for the six AIIMS-like institutions in the first phase are under process. The timeline for completion of these works is the second half of 2012.

New Delhi: Genetically Modified (GM) crops have the potential to increase farm yields, reduce farm costs and thereby increase farm incomes. The Government has, therefore, been very supportive of the efforts to develop transgenic crops.