Full Coverage: Asia and the Pacific

31.03.2006 A key component of e-governance is to provide governments with a citizen-friendly face.

31.03.2006 Effat College ended a two-day symposium yesterday on the subject of utilizing information and communication technologies in a teaching environment.

31.03.2006 After the IITs and IIMs, it is now the turn of foreign educational institutions in India to create a quota for the socially and educationally underprivileged.Indian branches of foreign universities may have to reserve seats for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes (OBCs) in keeping with the 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act.

31.03.2006 After a senior UN human rights official criticised Cambodia's one-man rule - which he said was stunting democracy and human rights - Prime Minister Hun Sen retaliated by saying he was no longer welcome in the country.
* OneWorld UK Cambodia Guide

31.03.2006 Three widows of murdered human rights defenders have been nominated by a leading Asian rights group for this year's Gwangju Prize for Human Rights.

31.03.2006 People living with HIV/AIDS are taking on drug major GlaxoSmithKline's efforts to patent its AIDS-medicine Combivir in India.The Manipur Network of Positive People (MNP+), under the aegis of the Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+) has filed a pre-grant opposition to GSK's patent application at the Indian Patent office in Kolkata.

31.03.2006 Patient care in Iraq has been the main casualty of an exodus of experienced doctors caused by rising levels of crime and violence.

31.03.2006 The Centre mulls creating a new cadre of bureaucrats, proposed to be called the District Panchayat Administrative Service (DPAS), for effective implementation of developmental programmes at the village level.

31.03.2006 There’s no harm as long as the needs of the higher education in general and the universities in particular are properly assessed, and the decision is taken in consultation with the UGC.

31.03.2006 key component of e-governance is to provide governments with a citizen-friendly face. Naturally, G2C (government-to-citizens) is an important element of all e-governance projects.e-Seva is, perhaps, the best example and one of the earliest attempts to take the benefits of e-governance to citizens.

31.03.2006 United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) director general Kandeh K Yumkella, in his discussions with commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath, decided to set up a South-South Cooperation Centre in India for dissemination of technological know-how and best practices among developing countries.

31.03.2006 The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Pakistani government launched an information and awareness-raising campaign on Thursday to reduce trafficking of women and children from earthquake-affected areas of northern Pakistan.

31.03.2006 The Kerala High Court has rejected the Indian environment ministry’s clearance to the Athirapilly Project, which seeks to construct a hydro-power project, across the Chalakudy river in the south Indian state. Clearance was rejected on the grounds that no public hearing had been conducted after the Environment Impact Assessment.

31.03.2006 In 1990, Amartya Sen observed that the world was short of 100 million women because of excess female mortality in India, China and South Korea. The next year, Ansley Coale put the figure at around 60 million for China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and West Asia and Egypt.

31.03.2006 On March 28, the very first doctor in India was sentenced to two years in prison for violating the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act. In the 11 years since the Act was enacted, why have lawbreakers got away?

31.03.2006 HIV infections in southern India have fallen by a third over a four-year period, raising hopes that the tide of the disease could be reversed in one of the country's worst-hit regions. A study published in the Lancet looked at data from the four south Indian states that account for 75 per cent of India's 5.1 million people infected with the virus.

31.03.2006 An Indian group of people living with HIV/AIDS have opposed a patent application filed by global pharma major GlaxoSmithKline for Combivir, a fixed dose combination AIDS drug on the grounds that it would make the treatment unaffordable. A number of Indian NGOs have submitted their opposition, based on technical and health grounds, to a patent application filed at the Kolkata patent office by the company.

30.03.2006 HIV and AIDS groups today opposed an Indian patent application by Glaxo on the grounds that it would set a precedent that would hamper access to affordable AIDS medicines worldwide.

30.03.2006 A one-third decline in HIV prevalence in the worst-affected region of India is probably the result of increased condom use by men visiting sex workers, the medical magazine The Lancet reports today.

30.03.2006 India has sent the maximum number of entries at the Stockholm Challenge 2006 competition that honours innovative ways of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to improve people's lives.