Full Coverage: Asia and the Pacific

31.12.2005 United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed the full withdrawal of Indonesian troops from the strife-torn Aceh province, which has seen nearly 30 years of separatist conflict.

30.12.2005 Still struggling with the issue of over a lakh women dying at childbirth every year, health experts are still debating whether traditional birth attendants, called dai in rural areas, should be actively involved in the family welfare programme.

30.12.2005 Collector Navin Mittal of Krishna district in Vijayawada announced that the district administration would open special hostels for children of HIV-positive parents from the next academic year. Vidya volunteers would be appointed to take care of the needs of those children at the hostels.

30.12.2005 OneWorld South Asia and another local non-government organization, Aradhya composed two songs on AIDS and was recognized by the Delhi State Aids Control Society.

30.12.2005 A recent report by an Indian government agency says that little attention is being paid to the standardisation, research and development of the Indian traditional system of medicine - ayurveda.

30.12.2005 At least 14,000 minors were abducted by State and Maoists, of which 60 were killed during conflict, in the past ten months, says a report.The report presented by Child Workers in Nepal, (CWIN), at Kathmandu, Nepal said that all the minors were abducted and disappeared in between January 2005 to November, by the belligerent sides

30.12.2005 The Tamil Nadu Government will give Rs.10 crores each to all the universities in the State to implement programmes in the higher education sector outlined by President A.P.J Abdul Kalam and contained in the Vision 2010 programme of the Government.

30.12.2005 The Sangam is an association of 56 groups of children across the city, involved with Arunodhaya's initiatives, getting together to voice their rights. Their requests to the Government include checking pollution, proper drainage systems for sewage and rainwater, disposal of garbage and removal of encroachments

30.12.2005 In a big step forward to make the ambitious mid-day meal scheme for children more attractive, HRD ministry has asked state governments to mobilise mothers to monitor the cooking and feeding of the meals.

30.12.2005 The ninth national conference on egovernance will be held at
Le Meridien, Kochi, Keralam from 2 to 4 February 2006.

30.12.2005 The Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 was one of the greatest natural disasters; it was also the first internet-mediated natural disaster.

30.12.2005 US based PeerMe Inc on Thursday launched its Internet voice communication systems in India which the company said would be free and unlimited.

30.12.2005 The Reserve Bank of India is focusing on research and analysis of the productivity trends in India on a continuous basis, Y V Reddy, Reserve Bank of India governor, said.

30.12.2005 Taking the world wide web to the rural masses, the Haryana government is setting up 'e-Chaupals' (cybercafes) in 150 villages of Sirsa district. The e-chaupals would initially be set up in villages with populations of 5,000 under the Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY) for the eighth lakh people that reside in 323 villages of Sirsa district.

30.12.2005 As bulks of rural development outlays are employment-related, there is considerable scope for the various schemes to be streamlined and re-fashioned as an employment guarantee scheme.

30.12.2005 Rural households are more in debt vis-a-vis urban households, and account for over 60 per cent of the total debt in the country.

30.12.2005 Charkha Development Communication Network has announced that it will award the best articles that bring to light community efforts to rebuild lives following the 8th October earthquake in Kashmir. This initiative is under the Sanjoy Ghose Humanitarian Award for Story Writing 2005-06 and is only applicable to residents from the state.

30.12.2005 Moreover, all member countries have finalised sensitive lists that protect vulnerable domestic producers. The tariff reduction mandated under SAFTA will not apply on items on countries’ respective sensitive lists. India, for instance, has kept 884 tariff lines in its sensitive list for non-LDCs and 763 items inthe list for LDCs. India’s sensitive list mainly includes agricultural goods, textiles, chemicals, leather and goods reserved for small scale industries.

30.12.2005 In her exclusive article for the Digital Opportunity Channel , Nidhi Tandon writes, “women’s business networks are an important step to strengthening of women’s negotiating positions and advocacy for common strategic goals”. She emphasises the importance of networked intelligence in changing global scenario especially for women entrepreneurs in today's globalised economy.

30.12.2005 Now religious and spiritual leaders would be brought together to focus on the alarming fall in the child sex ratio in Rajasthan. Agencies working in the field planned to involve religious and spiritual leaders of Jains, Jats, Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurjars and Muslim community as they attain a powerful hold in their community and bestow upon the community a voice and the presence in the larger societal framework.