At the sidelines of the 16th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran, Iran, the governments of Afghanistan, India and Iran will hold a small conclave. Commercial issues are at the top of the agenda. Not far down the list, however, are significant political matters. These are of great interest as the Israelis and the United States power up their aircraft [...]
It seems the Sheila Dixit government of Delhi, backed by powerful elements in the UPA-II central government, will let nothing stand in the way of water privatization in the capital. Several earlier attempts going back many years to fully or partially privatize distribution of water, especially the big loan application to the World Bank in 2005, were foiled by vigilant [...]
THE fall out of the Kokrajhar riots has become evident in the mass exodus and fear psychosis that has plagued the people of north eastern origin in cities like Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad. Newspaper reports state that over 2.5 lakh people started a homeward journey after rumours spread about retaliatory violence in the wake of the month long Kokrajhar riots. More [...]
THE Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has submitted three reports to the parliament this week – one on the allocation of coal blocks and augmentation of coal production; another on the implementation of public-private-partnership (PPP), Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi; and one on the Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPP) under Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), all for the year [...]
Majority of households’ real spending power on non-food articles fell by over 65% in the three months of the year with steep rise in prices of fruits & vegetables and essential commodities like milk, eggs, meat and fish etc., according to the ASSOCHAM data. Over 88% of middle income group (MIG) and lower income group (LIG) find difficult to manage [...]
THE ouster of the Paraguayan president, Fernando Lugo, in a legislative coup in the third week of June, was a surprising development that caught the region unaware. Only Washington seems to have been aware of the deep machinations that were underway when the Paraguayan president was on a tour of Asia, his first since being elected. Neither the citizens of the country nor [...]
Bioinformatics is attaining greater significance in the life sciences research and industry and hitherto unexplored areas of biology. Research in biotechnology, which is highly knowledge and capital intensive, has generated a deluge of information in this decade. To make use of this information effectively, there is a need for high speed and large bandwidth network. Towards this end, the Department [...]
The life of the Siddhartha (Buddha) Siddhartha was born to king Shuddhodhana and Mayadevi around 566 B.C. at Lumbini (now in Nepal) and thereafter spent the first twenty-nine years of his life in Kapilavastu, before renouncing earthly pleasures in a tireless quest for salvation. While leaving the city he declared in a lion’s roar that “I shall not enter Kapilavastu till I have seen the bourne beyond life [...]
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was notified in the remaining 274 districts of India from 1st April, 2008. The Act is now effective in the entire rural areas of the country covering 638 districts and has been renamed “The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)”. The objective of the Act is to provide for the enhancement of [...]
Cities offer many children the advantages of urban schools, clinics and playgrounds. Yet the same cities the world over are also the settings for some of the greatest disparities in children’s health, education and opportunities. Hundreds of millions of children today live in urban slums, many without access to basic services. Those children are vulnerable to dangers like violence, exploitation, [...]
Accessibility either to the hospitals or medicines would remain a distant dream for about 70 per cent of the Indians particularly in rural India until at least 2040 according to the report brought out by the ASSOCHAM Council on Healthcare and Hospitals. The report points out that India has an average 0.6 doctors per 1000 population against the global average [...]
(82% working mothers prefer Baby care products: survey) Despite slowdown, the Indian baby care products continues to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20% and expected to reach Rs. 4,200 crore by 2014 as against the current size of Rs. 3,000 crore including baby food, skin care, toiletries/ diapers, baby soap, oils, shampoo and creams, reveals [...]