Bangladesh is set to achieve a United Nations award this week for reducing child mortality rate nearly by two-thirds well ahead of the stipulated time-frame, UN officials said on Sunday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will hand over the award to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during the UN summit on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in New York. Ban convened the summit of the MDGs on the sidelines of the United Nations 65th...

All speakers addressing the main session of the World Water Week in Sweden during 5-11 September were presented with a beautifully wrapped bottle of tap water! Yes, you heard right: tap water from Stockholm. It is a symbol of achievement that the Swedes love to flaunt—and rightly so. It is also the best gift the Indian government can give to all Indians in general, and particularly those 500-odd million that live...

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Friday reviewed the progress towards financial inclusion by banks in India. Dr Singh was briefed on the efforts being made by banks to reach banking services through information and communication technology based models and banking intermediaries to 73,000 rural habitations having population of over 2000 as per the 2001 census by March 2012. The Prime Minister also reviewed the safety and security measures...

Around 22 districts in Rajasthan have been identified as those requiring immediate attention in terms of food security, according to the food security atlas of rural Rajasthan released jointly by the Institute of Human Development and the United Nation's World Food Programme (UNWFP) on Friday. The atlas further mentions the need of immediate, intensive intervention in ten out of these 22 districts to improve food and nutrition security. The atlas...

A common platform of several farmers groups, the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements, has charged the Central government with complete lack of transparency on the implications of the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or CEPA with Japan and the inclusion of agriculture on its agenda. "Such EPAs, like other FTAs, go beyond what cannot be negotiated under the WTO and we are openly opposed to agriculture in the WTO, in...