Full Coverage: Governance

28.06.2006 The US has perpetually been in denial about global warming, especially after the Earth Summit in Rio De Janerio held in 1992, but a recent report released by the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) may shake it out of its complacency. The report adds ammunition for lobbies within the US and forces outside it for pushing the world’s only superpower towards signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

28.06.2006 The India-Pakistan border is increasingly being used for smuggling narcotics into India, a senior United Nations official said.Addressing a press conference to mark the release of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2006 World Drug Report here, Gary Lewis, UNODC Representative for South Asia, said increased trans-border civilian movement could be one of the reasons.

28.06.2006 Rwanda has been announced the winner of the United Nations global competition on public service on the African continent.

27.06.2006 The informal coalition of several Bitola-based youth NGOs reacted on the decision of the Ministry of Culture to rent the space at the Bitola Cultural Centre and the “Army Club” for non-cultural purposes.

27.06.2006 The participants of the Gender Equality and Role of Women in Transition and Development of Democratic Values Conference presented the institutions, public services, media, the Priboj Municipal Gender Equality Council and NGO with a set of recommendations designed to assist the achievement of true gender equality.

27.06.2006 The financing of election campaign is the main source of any future corruption and should be made as transparent as possible, to avoid a situation in which the anonymous financiers will come to the political parties and demand favours in return for the support. Only a faction of the political parties have publicly disclosed their sources of financing and their greatest supporters in the business sector.

27.06.2006 Arambh has taken up the challenge of getting Bhopal’s slum children to return to school. Scores of children attend its centres to study and re-enter the education system, at timings that best suit them, especially if they are working

27.06.2006 Appointment of good teachers is the key to success of any institution, and only the best should be appointed, the Governor, Surjit Singh Barnala, has said. He also said that good teachers are the key to well-educated students. To achieve better education, we have to begin with teachers.

27.06.2006 With the news to have the smart card compulsory by next month, Bahrain is just one step away from a completely digitised economy. The law making smart card mandatory will make the Kingdom ahead of many countries in the region to switch over to the new digital economy.

27.06.2006 Vancouver, Canada: Mayors from around the world gathering at the World Urban Forum pledged to use their power, influence and voice to mobilize the political will needed to meet the globally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight concrete goals aimed at reversing the worst aspects of global poverty by 2015.

27.06.2006 When Raazia Baloch, a mother of four with a 1,000-watt smile, was elected to Helmand's provincial assembly in October, local authorities congratulated her with an unusual present - a Kalashnikov rifle.

26.06.2006 The Unesco has expressed willingness to support Akshaya, the State's IT dissemination project, in the field of women empowerment.

26.06.2006 With the world’s urban population set to exceed rural dwellers for the
first time next year, slum dwellers are as badly if not worse off than
their rural cousins in terms of health, literacy and prosperity,
contradicting general assumptions, according to a landmark study issued by the United Nations.

26.06.2006 Technology bellwether, IBM has signed an MoU with the Uttar Pradesh Government to give impetus to e-governance by providing quality training to IT students under an ambitious programme titled Project INVITE.

23.06.2006 Almost every working day of the week at least some 10 people make a beeline to a small bungalow situated in a narrow lane in the heart of the southern Matara town. These people are bringing grievances to the zonal office of Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission. The Disaster Relief Monitoring Unit of the Human Rights Commission has set up an Information Centre at the zonal offices of the Commission in the tsunami-affected areas over compensation-related and other problems.

23.06.2006 une 23, 2006 Thousands of villagers, panchayat representatives and women from marginalised communities. flagged off rozgar adhikar yatra from Palia in Lakhimpur Kheri district in terai region of Uttar Pradesh. presence of Hamida Bano president of Rashtriya Mahilla Evam Yuva Uthan Samiti flagged off the yatra.

23.06.2006 The government’s recent efforts at financial inclusion have so far not met with significant success in rural areas. A recent NSSO study shows that only 27% of cultivator households get any institutional credit. Another 22% borrow from money-lenders while the remaining 51% have no access to credit at all.

23.06.2006 The figures cited by the government for people living below the poverty line have come to be widely questioned. With poverty alleviation being the buzzword these days in our economic and social development and a key criterion for aid givers, it is understandable that the policymakers are desperately trying to prove the success of their strategy in terms of falling poverty levels.

23.06.2006 South African women living in squatter settlements build new homes, about 18,000 of them. Tens of thousands of new homes and many new police stations are coming up in Bombay slums. Neither is the result of a government programme, or of some kindly NGO. At both places local people have combined with government agencies in bold new ways to improve their homes and their lives.

22.06.2006 A new book has been recently launched that shows the way forward on
integrated water resources management (IWRM) with suggestions for the key organisational and managerial changes required at the macro and micro levels. The book Charting a New Course: A Strategy for Sustainable Management of India's Water Resources in the 21st Century by GN Kathpalia and Rakesh Kapoor goes beyond the acerbic debate on water resources between the 'pro-environment' groups and NGOs on the one hand and the 'pro-development' engineers, contractors and government officials on the other. Priced at Rs 75, (US $7) the book is Crown size and 64 pages.