Full Coverage: India

31.01.2006 A fresh round of research missions is set to probe the seafloor rupture that triggered the devastating tsunami of 2004. But when researchers arrive in the Indian Ocean, they will find some areas are off-limits. Geologists want access to Indian waters to understand the devastating seafloor earthquake in 2004.

31.01.2006 THE TALLY is growing. First it was confined to the frontline agricultural State of Punjab. But now the ultimate symbol of growing rural despair — putting villages up for sale — has spread to central India. Dorli, a sleepy village in Maharashtra's Wardha district, has sounded the bugle.

31.01.2006 Mina Swaminathan has been trying for over a year now to get the 120 agricultural universities in India introduce a short 18-hour module on gender issues in agriculture and rural livelihood, but without success. She says that the entire agricultural bureaucracy is gender insensitive.

31.01.2006 The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is holding a four-day training programme between February 21-24, 2006 and is inviting nominations by February 10, 2006.

31.01.2006 While the Union Budget is being prepared on a war-footing, Finance Minister P Chidambaram comes under pressure from both the Prime Minister's Office and the office of the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, to enhance Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) to take care of the social sector.

31.01.2006 A fresh round of research missions is set to probe the seafloor rupture that triggered the devastating tsunami of 2004. But when researchers arrive in the Indian Ocean, they will find some areas are off-limits. Geologists want access to Indian waters to understand the devastating seafloor earthquake in 2004.

31.01.2006 The leprosy eradication mission, which started at Independence reached a milestone with transmission of the disease reaching negligible levels. For the first time in 50 years, less than one in 10,000 persons contracted the disease last year

30.01.2006 The minister of industries in Tamil Nadu, Nainar Nagendran inaugurated the state governmentÂ’s multimedia campaign to popularize schemes of the state government.

30.01.2006 That the first, second and third worlds coexist within India has long been known. A new academic report corroborates this but also speaks of a 'fourth world' left behind in this country of a billion people, that aspires to be a global leader. The country's first ever ‘Social Development Report' warns that, since the economy was liberalised 15 years ago, disparities and inequalities have sharpened and regional imbalances widened to a point where social instability has become a serious threat.

30.01.2006 ActionAid India's third country strategy paper of India is called Rights First. It will serve as the organisation's guide for the years 2005 to 2010 and will help ActionAid work on tribals, dalits and Muslims - which are the marginalised communities in India.

30.01.2006 Aravind Eye Hospital, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Prevention of Blindness, provides an entire range of eye care services from primary eye care to the State of the Art tertiary eye care, through its network of five eye hospitals with a combined bed capacity of 3,500 serving primarily two southern States, Tamil Nadu and Kerala and partly Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh.

30.01.2006 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has permitted IT-enabled rural outlets of corporate entities, agri business centres and NGOs to act as intermediaries to provide financial and banking services in these banks, a move seen by the unions as allowing outsourcing in PSU banks, which they would oppose.

30.01.2006 NEW DELHI: Concerned at the slowdown in agriculture growth, the Ministry of Agriculture has drawn a short-term and long-term strategy to achieve a growth rate of four per cent. It feels that shared responsibility between the Centre and the States in addressing common as well as region-specific constraints in agriculture can help in achieving the four per cent target growth rate in the sector.

30.01.2006 Environmental activist Medha Patkar has asked Left parties to take a firm position against the machinations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monitory Fund (IMF), World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) whose funding programmes "are aimed at changing our priorities and culture.''

30.01.2006 University Grants Commission (UGC) has created a task force for setting up a National Qualification Framework (NQF) for standardising knowledge and skills of various programmes in different universities and institutions. NQF is a set of principles and guidelines by which the learner's acquired knowledge and skills are registered, enabling the conferring of national recognition.

30.01.2006 To keep pace with the rapid changes in the field of education, the Ministry of HRD is planning to constitute a National Commission for Higher Education. The Commission will keep track of the changes private players becoming a major force, enrollment figures doubling in the next few years, and only 10 per cent students being able to take a graduation degree

30.01.2006 Senior ministers of the Indian government told a group of international investors that India was committed to more reforms in the education sector to ensure that there was no shortage of skilled manpower to sustain an annual growth rate of over 8 per cent in the coming years

27.01.2006 France has offered to take back toxic asbestos waste from the Indian shipbreaker charged with dismantling the Clemenceau aircraft carrier, the defence ministry said on Friday.

27.01.2006 With mounting criticism of Greenpeace's opposition to arrival of French ship Clemenceau to Indian ship-breaking yard Alang, the organisation seems to have modified its stand on the industry. Read this press release by Greenpeace.

25.01.2006 Much of what we are discussing today is based on information disseminated through media. So, we are familiar with the mediaÂ’s role in setting off deliberations such as this one. How far they succeed in alleviating poverty is another matter.