Global megatrends such as income inequality, climate change, demographic shifts, technological progress, and urbanisation are shaping the future of societies. Yet, their quantitative impacts on development are neither well understood nor established. This paper examines the individual and combined effects of these global forces on poverty, using both cross-section and …
PAKISTAN plans to expand the controversial uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta near Islamabad to provide fuel for a nuclear power reactor being bought from China, according to senior government officials. Abdul Qader Khan, director of the research laboratories at Kahuta, said, "We believe that by the time we have the …
CHINA'S plan to build the Three Gorges dam across the Yangtze river with a 185-m-high reservoir level "would not be an economically viable proposition", according to the World Bank. Probe International reports the World Bank endorsed a Canadian feasibility study of the dam, which contained evidence that raising the water …
ONE OF Bangladesh"s leading environmental NGOs, the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), has taken the lead in rectifying a major lacuna in the Rio agenda. Dealing with poverty should have been the first item on the global agenda in Rio, but issues such as global warming and biodiversity, supported …
A BIBLIOGRAPHY is useful not only as a guide to further study and research, but also because it gauges the current attitudes and obsessions prevalent in academia. Researchers in the North are slowly waking up to a fact long recognised by activists and writers in the South: that environmental issues …
MEMBER-states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation have drawn up a joint action plan to combat AIDS. At a recent seminar in New Delhi, delegates stressed the need to share information, provide guidelines on policy matters and develop a uniform surveillance system. The seminar was the first of …
THREE months have passed since the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation adopted the Dhaka Declaration pledging to alleviate poverty drastically in the region. However, the United Nations University on South Asian Perspectives, in Colombo, says nothing much has been done. SAARC leaders propose to identify what more needs to …
TRADITIONALLY, Indian women have played the role of health care providers. But the reality of their own health is quite a different matter. Adverse sex ratios, higher rates of malnutrition and lower hospital admissions among women in India stand as a sad testimony to the state of their health care. …
Centre for Health Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness Lilavatiben, Lalbhais Bungalow Civil Campus Road, Shahi Bagh Ahmedabad 380 004 Women's Health Forum 839, 23rd Main 10th Cross J P Nagar 2nd Phase Bangalore 644 963 Indira Kapoor Family Welfare Training and Research Centre 332 Sardar V P Road Bombay 400 …
LAST MONTH, 40 Aztec Indians led a march from downtown Vienna to the Austria Centre, venue of the World Conference on Human Rights, to highlight the plight of the world's 300 million indigenous people. Lobbying for the rights of indigenous people at the conference was appropriate, 1993 being the Year …
The United Nations Development Programme's third and latest report acclaims participation as the cornerstone of human development. This springs from its recognition that "people's participation is becoming the central issue of our time." The emphasis is on people and the "impatient urge that they have to participate in the events …
THE POPULAR fish, Palla, or Ilish as it is known in Bangladesh, is an endangered species, says a Panos Features report quoting Mirza Arshad Beg, former chairperson of the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Beg says dams have restricted the fish's movement in the last few decades and, …
Drainage congestion and increased rainfall runoff over eight centuries are increasingly choking Dhaka, the "unplanned Capital of Bangladesh", and this is leading to internal flooding, reports Panos Features, citing a recent study by S Dara Shamsuddin and Rafique Ahmed. The two researchers used data collected by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department. …
Everyone these days is aware of the phenomenon of global warming, even if they find it difficult to distinguish between stratospheric ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. Global Warming: The Economic Stakes is about the greenhouse effect and the resultant environmental pollution and global damage. Incoming radiation from the sun …
BESET by famine and drought, large sections of Orissa and Bihar are beginning to mirror the stark images of hunger in Somalia and Sudan. In Orissa, more than 10 million people -- the majority of whom are tribals -- are reeling under a famine. In tribal-dominated south Bihar, too, more …
PEOPLE in Orissa's famine-hit regions are desperately selling their children -- not for the money but to ensure two square meals a day for them. So far, 16 cases of children being sold have been exposed in the local media, but the state government is yet to admit even one. …
US TREASURY secretary Lloyd Benen said his country favoured World Bank funding of programmes to help people affected by war, civil strife and economic mismanagement, and demanded specific targets be set for the purpose. The Bank president, Lewis Preston, said poverty eradication "must be at the centre of our overall …
THE INTERNATIONAL aid organisation, Oxfam, wants Western governments to evolve a Marshall plan to tackle the problem of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and prevent 9 million people in the region falling below the poverty line each year. The organisation suggests writing off much of the region's external debt, which amounted …
AT THE National Film Festival this year, the winner of the award for the best feature film on family welfare was a 150-minute, tear-jerker starring Aparna Sen. Directed by Prabhat Roy with gusto, the film has enough dramatic touches to guarantee box office popularity. Shwet Paatharer Thala tells the story …
THE MUCH-lauded Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) has failed as an instrument to transform rural India. And not all the high praise from the prime minister or the government's hiking of the JRY budget or the speedy enactment of the Panchayati Raj bill, ostensibly to empower village-level institutions, can mask this …
SONRAJ IN THE Uttar Pradesh village of Sonrai, water-starved residents eke out a living growing a single, rainfed crop of jowar or kodo (millet) on 500 sandy ha and by mining granite, phosphate or lead the rest of the time. The village averages 85 cm of rain annually, sufficient to …
