Saving the world’s myriad diverse species, which are being lost to human activity at an unprecedented rate that some experts put at 1,000 times the natural progression, is vital not just for environmental reasons but for the economic well-being of humankind, a senior United Nations official said today. “Without preserving biodiversity and preserving our natural habitat, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) just cannot be achieved,” UN Development Programme (UNDP) Environment and...

This report is sure to come as a shocker for all those who thought the worst was over after believing that the recession is petering out. The recently released World Economic Situation and Prospects 2010 (WESP) of the United Nations (UN), predicts that the economic growth in the developing world will remain well below the pre-crisis pace of more than 7 per cent per annum. China’s and India’s economies are...

SC lays down eight rules to streamline the PIL movement and wants the courts to follow them What the development of public interest litigation (PIL) and right to information has done to the justice delivery system can be compared, with a little exaggeration, to the growth of mobile telephony and Internet in communications. The only fear is that they may act like unruly horses at times. Public interest petitions have been filed...

Angus Deaton, the Princeton economist regarded as world's foremost authority on cross-country income data, has cast serious doubts on the World Bank's last upward revision of global poverty figures and India's statistics are at the centre of the storm. The world became poorer as a result of a combination of India's economic growth and its low poverty line, Deaton, who is president of the American Economic Association, said in his...

The law is supposed to be enforced uniformly, and without sorting the guilty on the basis of their economic and social background. On Monday, however, the Supreme Court said that economic status of a murder convict needs to be taken into account to determine whether he should be awarded death penalty or life sentence even in respect of offences falling in the "rarest of rare" category. In an order that...