Full Coverage: MDGs

23.03.2007 China, Japan, South Korea, the United States and the European Union will attend as observers the 14th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in New Delhi on April 3 and 4.

23.03.2007 As fighting between Tamil rebels and Sri Lankan forces escalate into open war the losers are civilians, particularly some 200,000 refugees cramped into camps set up in eastern Batticaloa district.

23.03.2007 Go to any school you consider good, enter Class II, and write these words on the blackboard in neat letters: 'When you read this, stand up'. Children will read the words aloud, but nobody will stand up. Why? Because, by the end of Grade I, reading has already been dissociated from meaning.

22.03.2007 NAIROBI, Mar 22 (IPS) - Kenya's capital, Nairobi, takes its name from a Maasai word meaning "place of cool waters". In parts of the city, however, this term is less descriptive than ironic -- as demand for water is outstripping supply.

22.03.2007 Anyone who knows even a little bit about school education in India knows that it is largely about exclusion. Only a tiny minority of children in our country get anything resembling a decent schooling - the rest are either excluded altogether, or provided very poor quality education with weak infrastructure and inadequate pedagogic attention, which in turn encourages high rates of dropout.

22.03.2007 The Delhi High Court gave its approval of the Delhi government's suggestions to take over all municipality-run schools in a move to bring about qualitative improvement in teaching in those schools.A division bench of Chief Justice M.K. Sarma and Justice Sanjiv Khanna directed the government to take a formal decision in this regard and submit a plan-of-action by March 28.

22.03.2007 Imagine running your computer on a solar energy backup for five hours a day! It's possible, says an expert who sees India as a promising destination for alternative sources of power.Terence "Terry" J Hart, vice chairman and technical director of IT Power India Pvt Ltd, sees states like Karnataka and West Bengal ahead in the use of alternative energy.

21.03.2007 The new free trade agreements being signed up between rich and poor countries are proving far more damaging to the poor than anything envisaged within WTO talks, Oxfam said in a report

21.03.2007 Remittances – money sent home by immigrant workers abroad – are hugely beneficial to many countries across the world.India is the world’s top receiver of remittances. Flows into the country have grown dramatically in recent years, touching US$ 17.4 billion in 2003, up from some US$2 billion a year in the late 1980s.

21.03.2007 India has been remarkably successful in boosting economic growth: its economy has grown at about 6 percent per annum since the 1990s, with growth accelerating to 9 percent over the past two years. Absolute poverty has been cut in half, and the country seems set to achieve middle income status soon.

20.03.2007 OWSA is organisin a half-day consultation on Climate Change that is being held in our premises on the 23rd March, 2007. The consultation is intended to facilitate deliberations on the topic - Climate Change: Where are we and where do we go?

20.03.2007 Nandigram in West Bengal has emerged as the lightning rod for criticism of the governmentÂ’s economic policies. While previous clashes here over the proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) have killed at least seven people including a policeman, the events of March 14 put a halt to the West Bengal governmentÂ’s industrialisation bid and has forced a re-think at the national level.

19.03.2007 After more than four years of sitting on the fence on the issue of pesticide residues in carbonated soft drinks, the government has finally taken a stand. But will it follow through on its promise to put in place mandatory food safety norms?

19.03.2007 It is difficult to figure out what exactly the UPA government wants. On the one hand, from the declaration of the National Common Minimum Programme onwards, the government has declared that it will make education a major thrust area, that it will increase public spending on education to at least 6 per cent of GDP and take measures to make India a ''knowledge-based'' society and economy.

15.03.2007 Sangath Society, a Goa-based CSO working with mental health issues, has come up with the concept of ‘resource rooms’ for children with learning disabilities, within their normal schools, where they can be given special attention. The concept is currently being pilot-tested in three schools in the state

15.03.2007 Billed by one financial paper as the first step in a Global Indian Takeover, the acquisition of Anglo-Dutch steel major Corus by the Tata group is as much about upper-crust India's new nationalism as it is about corporate strategy. Tata's victory in the final head-to-head auction against Brazil's Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) is undoubtedly a major event in the country's corporate history.

14.03.2007 A ban by the Sri Lankan government on young mothers taking up jobs as housemaids in foreign countries, to minimise social disruption at home, has whipped up a storm of protests with rights groups slamming the move as hasty and poorly planned.

14.03.2007 A Division Bench of Delhi High Court headed by the Hon'ble Chief Justice asked the Government of Delhi to respond to Social Jurist PIL highlighting that large number of out of school children between the age group of 6 to 14 years are denied admission by government schools on unjustified grounds, like, overcrowded classrooms, absence of drinking water, absence of functional toilet blocks, expiry of date of admission etc.

14.03.2007 OneWorld South Asia held its Sixth Annual Regional Meeting (ARM) at the Mirabel Resort Hotel, Dhulikhel, Kathmandu, Nepal on 27 - 28 February 2007. Around 200 delegates from civil society, government, academia, media, and the corporate sector across South Asia reflected on the theme Midway to MDGs: Accelerating progress through ICTs and adopted the Kathmandu Declaration, which demands concerted efforts to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

12.03.2007 New Delhi-based NGO working on media issues - Centre for Media Studies - is holding a conference, Communication for Social Development: Discourse and Practice at the south Indian city of Hyderabad from April 12-14, 2007. The three-day event is being held in collaboration with the University of Hyderabad.