When flames from an open cooking fire raced through Fida Hussein's shack in northern India, it was a disaster for him and his poverty-stricken family. "We have nothing," said Hussein as he stood in the ruins of his hut through which the sky could be seen between the burnt roof timbers in a remote corner of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. India's number of millionaires grew by 51 percent...

Seeking to build on the strengths of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) while, at the same time, eliminating its main deficiencies and shortcomings, the rural development ministry is planning to take UPA government’s flagship project to a new level. A three-day-long workshop of the coordination group attached to the ministry, as also other principal stakeholders, gets underway at the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Rural Development from...

Honey hubs to be created for SC/STs at Kodaikanal, Vadipatti and Kadayam Priority for small projects in the range of Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 3 lakh Emphasis on production of fly-ash bricks and palm products The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) plans to focus on creating employment opportunities for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs) in rural areas of southern districts. The Central Government body plans to start new khadi institutions near their habitations...

School feeding programmes, which provide meals so that millions of children in poor countries can attend classes, can be broadened to reach even more pupils with the help of donors and partnerships, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today as it called for increased international support. Nancy Walters, the chief of school feeding policy at WFP, told a New York forum on hunger that the programmes have many...

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told trade delegates in a fax on 12 May that cotton has become a “litmus test” for the “development dimension” of the Doha Round. At a recent review of the issue’s standing in WTO talks, some countries, such as Tanzania, alleged that no progress has been made since 2005. Leonce Kone, the trade minister from Burkina Faso - a cotton-exporting Least Developed Country (LDC) - joined Geneva-based...