Full Coverage: Poverty

29.09.2006 A new report by the UN says that India has enough food to feed its population of one billion though hunger and food insecurity have increased since the mid-1990s.

28.09.2006 The report details the findings of the ICT Capacity pilot project, which was commissioned to identify potential capacity issues within the ICT market.

26.09.2006 The government reviews the progress of IndiaÂ’s Bharat Nirman programme, which aims to upgrade IndiaÂ’s rural infrastructure. While the yearÂ’s targets for rural telephony, water supply, housing and new roads have been met, there was a shortfall in electricity and irrigation coverage

25.09.2006 A meeting organized by the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Presence in Albania, aims to promote partnerships between anti-trafficking and Roma non-governmental organizations to better fight the increasing phenomenon of trafficking in Roma across Europe.

25.09.2006 The core question addressed in this paper is what explains the large inter-state disparity in child malnutrition as
manifested in stunting in India⎯ranging from 22 to 56 per cent. A perhaps surprising finding is that inter-state differences in child stunting are not directly correlated to differences in income poverty. The variables with the highest explanatory power for stunting are child health-care provision and the fertility rate.

25.09.2006 An UN report on on the Extent of Chronic Hunger and Malnutrition has said that even though India has enough food to feed its one billion people, hunger and household-level food insecurity have increased since the latter half of the 1990s.

21.09.2006 Development organisation CARE India is holding the 'Microfinance India 2006' to be held on October 30-31, 2006 in New Delhi. This is the third in a series of annual conferences organized to provide an international learning, sharing and visioning platform for the Indian microfinance industry. The early bird registration also has been extended to October 10, 2006.

19.09.2006 An African diplomat from one of the world's 50 poorest nations, described as least developed countries (LDCs), once complained that it took about five to 10 years to get a landline telephone connection in his home country -- and an additional five years to get a dial tone on the new phone.

19.09.2006 Strong economic growth in South Asia is creating "political space" for much-needed policy and institutional reforms to accelerate and sustain growth, and tackle long-standing social and economic problems, according to a World Bank report.

19.09.2006 Peace lovers from Pakistan and India have described weapons of mass destruction (WMD), poverty, illiteracy, intolerance and extremism as the root causes of economic instability in South Asia.

19.09.2006 from Global Warming Watch blog:
'Using lateral thinking to come up with a smart and practical approach to reducing the mutually-reinforcing problems of world poverty and GHG emissions is the sort of thing we need more of.' Greenpeace and their partners have done that.

13.09.2006 State-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICT) can empower people to achieve their development aspirations through information and knowledge.

12.09.2006 A lack of steadfastness appears to mark the UPA Government's handling of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The silver lining is that the NREGA is becoming a matter of competition among political parties.

11.09.2006 The issue of education of the Roma population is eminently political and will demand greater practical engagement by the state and its institutions, believes the National Roma Centre from Kumanovo.

11.09.2006 The State Government has done little to demonstrate its commitment in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) for the benefit of the unemployed poor in rural areas of five districts.

11.09.2006 An Indian government study finds that almost one in six ship workers at AsiaÂ’s largest shipbreaking yard, Alang in Gujarat, suffers from asbestos poisoning that could lead to lung cancer. At 2 per 1,000, the fatal accident rate among AlangÂ’s ship workers is several times higher than the 0.34 per 1,000 in the mining industry, considered IndiaÂ’s most unsafe profession.

11.09.2006 CARE India’s Credit and Savings for Household Enterprise (CASHE) project is one of the largest microfinance projects in the country. For the past two years CASHE along with its associates, has been organizing ‘microfinance India’ conference which draws attention of national and international sector experts. This year the conference is being held on October 30-31, 2006 in New Delhi.

10.09.2006 Secondary education is compulsory in 144 countries worldwide, but even in many of those nations, the word "compulsory" must be taken lightly.

08.09.2006 Roma Scholarship Foundation (RSF) concluded that the ongoing election activities in Montenegro confirmed, once again, that Roma and Egyptians are not involved sufficiently in public affairs and social and political life.

08.09.2006 Santraj Maurya is a young waste-picker, who works in New Delhi's elite residential areas undertaking door-to-door garbage collection. Last month he was invited to a conference to Belo Horizonte in Brazil but was denied boarding by Alitalia officials. The reasons - he did not have the profile of an international traveller, did not speak confidently and did not know English. Read this press release from New Delhi NGO Chintan.