Full Coverage: South Asia

30.09.2007 PAHELI (People’s Audit of Health, Education and Livelihoods) takes MDGs to the local level so that ordinary residents can understand how far they have fared on their social goals. This exercise has been carried out by the NGO Pratham with support from UNDP and UNICEF in 11 of the poorest districts in India.

29.09.2007 I For India uses the home movies and reel-to-reel tape recordings sent to his family in India by Dr Yash Pal Suri, following his migration to Darlington in 1965.

29.09.2007 The recently concluded Manthan Awards 2007 brought together India’s E-content stakeholders from across the ICT arena, government, civil society, NGOs and industry to discuss the role of e-content for development to empower rural India. The high-profile event was held from September 21- 22 at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi.

29.09.2007 India’s first Local Area Portal (LAP) on a parliamentary constituency has been launched by Digital Empowerment Foundation. The idea is to make all data – social, cultural, historical – available to its citizens, including announcements from the local MPs and MLAs. The LAP project plans to represent every electorate cluster in the country.

29.09.2007 The southern state of Karnataka in India has set up E-Halli centres – an e-governance initiative to provide important information and services in rural areas. The centres will operate from the panchayat premises and will charge a small annual fee.

29.09.2007 India’s first Local Area Portal (LAP) on a parliamentary constituency has been launched by Digital Empowerment Foundation. The idea is to make all data – social, cultural, historical – available to its citizens, including announcements from the local MPs and MLAs. The LAP project plans to represent every electorate cluster in the country.

29.09.2007 A recent report on Afghanistan reveals that social and economic progress is still a distant dream for its people as they struggle amidst military conflict. Over six million Afghans remain hungry while 60,000 children are addicted to drugs, the Human Development Report 2007 claimed.

28.09.2007 Registration of births and a crackdown on diagnostic centres have resulted in more girls being born than boys in the southern city of Hyderabad. Its success in reversing its decade-long sex-ratio is now being considered for replication in other states by the government.

28.09.2007 The recent decision by Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka to grant citizenship to three million people who have no official identity has been hailed by the UN Refugee Agency as a ‘major breakthrough.’

27.09.2007 Major breakthroughs have recently been made in granting citizenship to roughly 3 million stateless people living in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, and to children born to expatriate Brazilians.

27.09.2007 Thanks to an organization providing special low-cost prosthetics, northern Pakistanis who lost a limb during the 2005 earthquake can now return to their regular lives.

27.09.2007 The recently concluded Manthan Awards 2007 brought together India’s E-content stakeholders from across the ICT arena, government, civil society, NGOs and industry to discuss the role of e-content for development to empower rural India. The high-profile event was held from September 21- 22 at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi.

27.09.2007 Freelance journalist Jason Motlagh unearths the India beyond Bollywood and the info-tech boom. Keep up with his blogs and photo reports on the country's rural poor, who are dealing with flooding and a four-decade-long guerrilla insurgency.

27.09.2007 “Tourism Opens Doors for Women.” This is the theme for this year’s World Tourism Day, celebrated every year on September 27. It is also a call to work towards the third Millennium Development Goal of promoting gender equity and empowerment.

27.09.2007 The World Bank has decided not to be ‘tried’ by the Tribunal’s jury. A statement released by the Bank on the concluding day of the IPT, while claiming interest in an open public debate, has cited its reasons for abstaining itself.

27.09.2007 The Independent Peoples Tribunal (IPT) on the World Bank in India has held the Bank’s policies and projects guilty of causing untold sufferings among millions of poor and of violating human rights. The four-day hearing was attended by activists, civil society groups, academics, policy analysts and project affected communities who presented evidence against the Bank.

26.09.2007 While the 53rd Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, which began in New Delhi on Tuesday, focused on democracy and sustainable development, India sought to draw the attention of delegates to terrorism with President Pratibha Patil taking the lead.

26.09.2007 A recent press conference organised by the Conference of Indian Industry (CII) called for leveraging technology for equitable growth. Corporate India will have to take up issues of education and skill development of socially disadvantaged classes, the CII President said.

26.09.2007 WaterAid and its partners are using novel ways to educate people on sanitation. The community-led total sanitation (CLTS) approach has already had a huge impact in Bangladesh where open defecation is a common problem.

26.09.2007 The community radio movement in Bangladesh has received a boost as the government set up a high level committee to review the draft broadcasting policy. This has been the result of a strategic campaign by Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) and other civil society groups.