Full Coverage: Development

24.02.2007 Five years after the Sri Lankan government signed a Norway-brokered ceasefire agreement (CFA) with Tamil separatist rebels, all actors are now agreed that the document now remains solely on paper.

23.02.2007 Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development (DFID) Suma Chakrabarti tells The Financial Express in an interview that a political consensus is building on in the UK over committing its Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment of 0.7% of its GNP. Read on for more.

23.02.2007 Novartis AG had filed a batch of petitions challenging the order of rejection of its patent application for beta crystalline form of imatinib mesylate and section 3 (d) of the Act as amended by the Patents (Amendment) Act. Additional Solicitor-General, V.T. Gopalan,told the Madras High Court the amended Section 3 (d) of the Patents Act and the explanation were valid.

23.02.2007 The Left parties and experts demanded the scrapping of the Mashelkar committee report on patents, and asked the Government to reject any proposal from its members to rewrite the "plagiarised" and "pro-multinational corporation" paper.

22.02.2007 According to a World Health Organisation survey, many Indian families, whose inability to access or afford water, sanitation and nutritious food has made them more prone to ill-health, have been pushed below the poverty line by the rising cost of healthcare

22.02.2007 The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)'s climate coordinator in the South Pacific says that a recent United Nations report on climate change has "underestimated" the threat to millions of people in the region from sea-level rise.

20.02.2007 The problem lies altogether with the incorrect understanding of the concept of pre-primary education. It is submitted that pre-primary education is in fact not a formal education as is commonly understood but is only a play way education. It is well known fact that the children are sent to play way schools as early as of two years of age and the same is gaining ground.

20.02.2007 Freedom must be given judiciously to appropriate person. It is said, "freedom is our birth right". Absolutely Right! The implication is tantalizing. We have freedom to take bribe, we have freedom to oppress poorer, we have freedom to abuse power and money, we have freedom to support corrupted officers and ministers to get a gainful position.The view expressed by Abhijit Bhattacharyya.

20.02.2007 For the third time in less than a year, terrorists have attempted to derail the peace process between India and Pakistan. Handing them a victory is the last thing we should do.Mr Siddharth Varadarajan. express this view in Hindu.

20.02.2007 At least 67 people were killed and 50 injured when two firebombs went off on the New Delhi-Wagah Samjhauta Express just before midnight on Sunday. Most of the dead, including three children, are Pakistani citizens: the first civilians of that country to have died in a terrorist strike on Indian soil.

19.02.2007 The Education and Employment Alliance (EEA), a global initiative to develop new public-private partnerships that address critical education and employment needs, will hold its Second Annual Global Summit in Hyderabad, India, between March 6-8, 2007

19.02.2007 Residents of the embattled northern Sri Lankan town of Jaffna who get to see the ‘Uthayan’ newspaper often get a copy that is thumb-worn and soiled from having passed through the hands of many avid readers.

19.02.2007 Some of the biggest brands in electronics industries and their suppliers are contaminating rivers and underground wells with a wide range of hazardous chemicals, according to a Greenpeace survey

16.02.2007 The federal cabinet to increase public-private investment in the education sector from the current level of 2.6 per cent of GDP to four per cent is a good step.However, approval of this decision comes with several qualifiers.

15.02.2007 India’s Total Literacy Campaign (TLC) used a new system by making local administrators and community organisations – not central bureaucrats – responsible for implementation. What has been TLC’s lasting impact on the women who administered the programme, worked as volunteer teachers and were taught literacy and numeracy skills.

15.02.2007 The Millennium Development Goal to achieve gender equality in education can only be met by concerted action. Stronger partnerships are needed to increase opportunities for the millions of girls and women excluded from education, but what kind?

14.02.2007 The state of California in the United States has for a while been the standard bearer of policy measures that reduce state responsibility in critical areas that were typically the responsibility of public provision earlier. The privatisation of electricity utilities was one infamous example, in which California led the world and ended up providing a textbook case of how not to privatise power distribution.

14.02.2007 Mere expansion of the Indian economy will not address the issues relating to the plight of the Indian child who continues to suffer from under-nourishment, anaemia and lack of basic schooling facilities, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen said.

13.02.2007 Magsaysay 2001 awardee Rajendra Singh, responsible for reviving thousands of tanks and five rivers in Rajasthan in the last two decades by working with rural poor, has an interesting observation.

12.02.2007 Hiring a private firm to manage the drinking water system in Nepal's capital violates the right to health guarantee in the country's interim constitution, activists are set to argue before the Supreme Court.