The Annual Plan for Punjab for the current fiscal has been finalised at Rs.14,000 crore at a meeting here between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Initiating the discussions on Punjab's Plan performance, Mr. Ahluwalia lauded the State Government's efforts towards improving the health of the State's economy as also initiatives targeted at providing a boost to sectors such as health and education.

Planning Commission nod for cancer hospital in Malwa; water-logging, depleting water table to be dealt with. The Planning Commission today approved an annual plan outlay of Rs 14,000 crore for Punjab for the 2012-13 financial year. The amount has been hiked by 10 per cent as compared to last year's outlay of Rs 12,800 crore.

New Delhi The Planning Commission today approved a plan outlay of Rs 14,000 crore for Punjab during 2012-13, an increase of 12 per cent compared to the previous fiscal.

The state outlay was finalised by Commission's Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister of Punjab Prakash Singh Badal in a meeting here.

With a weak rupee, exporters are confident of demand for Indian agri products in global mkt
Exporters of agri commodities such as wheat, sugar and cotton feel that shipments could pick up if India would enter into bilateral agreements with countries in the Middle East, Africa and the Saarc bloc. Comfortable global stock and a slowdown in the world economy are making Indian agri commodity exports unviable, say exporters. With a weak rupee, exporters are confident of demand for Indian agri products in international market if bilateral agreements are in place.

It is mostly caused by deliberate neglect and designed failure of the way we manage water and land

It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live with.

After patting on the back by announcing that he would give one per cent of the annual budget of the ministry for rural development (`99,000 crores) to the ministry of panchayati raj, Union minister Jairam Ramesh is faced with reality check — that it is not he who can do so, but Parliament only.

A few weeks ago, Union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh announced that one per cent of his ministry’s annual budget, which would come to about `990 crores, would be given to the panchayati raj ministry.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia and Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will lead a global panel to set international targets on sustainable development, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.

The panel will start work after a major summit next month in Rio de Janeiro. The trio admitted in a joint statement that there was still "some way to go" to eliminate global poverty.

Australia will provide A$100.5 million dollars, equivalent to Tk 8.3 billion, as official development assistance to Bangladesh for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

“Australia's aid program makes an important contribution to a global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in particular for eradicating poverty,” said Acting High Commissioner of Australia Tim Bolotnikoff.

This is part of the Australian government's overall commitment to increase the size of the Australian aid program to A$5.2 billion from A$4.8 billion in 2011-12 fiscal year, said a press release.

Irked By Comments On Inclusive Growth
The government has taken exception to the ‘biases’ in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Asia Pacific Human Development report, titled, One Planet, which was released on Thursday.

UNDP, required to play a neutral role in international governance, has recommended that India and other countries in the Asia Pacific region take greater responsibility to reduce emissions and warned that ‘inclusive growth’ would increase emissions, a trade-off that India cannot afford.