Nearly 65% of adults in the Arab region remain excluded from formal financial systems, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The Annual SDG Review 2025 paints a sobering picture of persistent financial exclusion that is undermining the region’s ability …
India's investment in research and development activities in 1990-91 was Rs 4,186.83 crores. This was just 0.89 per cent of the country's gross domestic product - a paltry figure compared to investments in'this field by member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The government continues to shoulder …
To lessen the burden that the burgeoning world population puts on resources, family planning programmes will have to cover about 650 million people by AD 2000 and about 880 million by AD 2015, according to the Washington-based Population Action International. Financial resources have to be mobilised to meet the growing …
President Suharto of Indonesia is under fire for allegedly diverting $189 million intended for the forestry ministry's rainforest preservation programme to the state-owned aircraft maker, Industri Pesawat Terbang Negara, as an interest-free loan. Suharto now faces a legal challenge from 11 Indonesian environmental groups who plan to take their case …
FOR decades the Indian power sector has been hounded by the scourge of mounting transmission and distribution losses, currently estimated at 23 per cent of the total power generated in the country, stalling efficient systems operation. But a solution might now be at hand. The Power Finance Corp (PFC), the …
GRAM PANCHAYAT: The village-level council covering 1 or more villages, depending on population. It consists of 10-20 elected members led by the sarpanch and the up-sarpanch. JANPAD PANCHAYAT: The block-level body and second tier of the system, encompassing the gram panchayats within the block. The janpad has 10-25 members, including …
The implementation of panchayati raj is expected to provide a fillip to various grassroot movements in the state, thanks to activists being elected. About 700 sarpanches are affiliated to the Ekta Parishad, an ngo. In Bilaspur, more than 1,000 panches and sarpanches are associated literacy programmes. The Narmada Ghati Nav …
• Panchayats are free to choose their development priorities, allot funds and set time-limits for programme implementation, generate internal resources, collect taxes and impose fines. • They will be able to trade, remove structures and trees, maintain sanitation, drainage, water works and sources of water, regulate use of water and …
UNTIL recently, Virender Singh and Churawan Lal were leading ordinary lives in obscure villages in Madhya Pradesh. On August 20, a change came their way and subjects became rulers. Both were formally endowed with powers under the Madhya Pradesh Panchayati Raj Act, 1993. Singh of Behat in Gwalior district and …
THE countdown has begun for the adoption, in June, of the UN's International Convention to Combat Desertification. However, global efforts to arrive at a consensus on the issue are proving almost as tortuous as the problem that the convention seeks to address. The recently-held 4th session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating …
THE developed and the developing countries were locked in yet another standoff at the recent Asian Development Bank (ADB) meeting in Nice, France. At the heart of the dispute lay the insistence of industrialised countries, led by the US, that the ADB's capital increase be linked to a reorientation of …
BICKERING between the North and the South has hindered the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances in the Third World. Although 7 of the 14 members of the Ozone Fund's executive committee are from developing countries, merely 300 tonnes of such substances were phased out in the Third World last year; …
FINANCE minister Manmohan Singh has turned his back on International Monetary Fund-imposed financial discipline and given India a growth-oriented budget that pushes for further globalisation of the economy. But, given the high fiscal deficit and inflationary trends, there may be many pitfalls ahead. The budget stresses rapid technological advancement, opens …
HIT BY a severe recession, Japanese companies are reducing spending on research and development (R&D;) and many firms are scaling down low-priority or long-term projects in favour of those that offer immediate returns. Japan's ministry of international trade and industry surveyed 28 big companies and found their total spending would …
A PLAN to reward UK farmers switching to organic methods has been criticised for not recognising those already practising organic farming. Under the five-year scheme, the government will pay British farmers who convert to organic methods $104.16 a hectare initially, reducing this to $37.2 a hectare in the last year. …
INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund statistics show military spending in the world, excluding the countries of the former Soviet Union, fell from 3.9 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 1986 to 3.1 per cent in 1992. The fund predicts a further decline to 2.3 per cent of global GDP …
WHILE no two health care systems are alike, certain questions are germane to all: How do markets for health care work? Should governments work in the health care market? Why, and to what extent? What form could such intervention take? What is the trade-off between equity and efficiency? The first …
To boost the stagnant demand for solar heating devices, the Union ministry of nonconventional energy sources (MNES), along with the ministry for urban development, has chalked out a scheme to make the installation of solar and air heaters mandatory for all government buildings. This was announced in the beginning of …
LESS THAN a week before he faced a no-confidence motion in Parliament in July, Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao found time to keep an appointment with 25 top scientists. The meeting, called at the instance of minister of state for science and technology P R Kumaramangalam, was ostensibly a …
POLITICAL support for expensive scientific projects, plagued as they are by cost overruns, is dwindling in the US because with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the defence applications of space research are now less urgent. Besides, US scientists have suggested -- for the first time in modern memory -- …
THE WORLD Health Organisation asked governments and other groups at the Ninth International AIDS Conference held in Berlin in June, to provide it with $2.5 billion annually, to combat the AIDS epidemic and save 10 million people all over the world this decade. The World Bank also endorsed the plan, …
