Resurgent food prices, which rose by 10% on average in many regional economies in ASIa this year, can push an additional 64 million people into extreme poverty, an ASIan Development Bank (ADB) report says. The study, titled, 'Global Food Price Inflation and Developing ASIa', by the multilateral lending agency, finds that a 10% rise in domestic food prices could push an additional 64 million people, out of 3.3 billion people living...

Even at this rate India might fail to meet the millennium development goal on sanitation In April last year when a UN report said more Indians had mobile phones than toilets, it pointed to a major miss in the millennium development goal on access to sanitation in the country. The message was clear at the South ASIan Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN), the highest inter-governmental forum to discuss sanitation in the subcontinent,...

India is seeking a postponement of the decision on a global ban on Endosulfan to the next meeting of the conference of parties to the Stockholm Convention in 2013, according to observers. C. Jayakumar and Dr. Mohammed Asheel, observers from Kerala to the ongoing conference of parties to the Convention in Geneva, said in an email message that India had distributed a draft of its proposal among the ASIa Pacific group...

A UN panel has said killing of tens of thousands of people in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil strife could amount to "war crimes", but Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insisted he would only launch an international investigation if Colombo agrees or member states call for it. A UN statement publicly releASIng a report by a world body panel said that Secretary General has been advised that he needs...

According to the third advance estimate, India’s foodgrain production in the current farm year (to end in June 2011) will be a record 235.88 million tonnes, including an all-time high wheat output of 84.27 million tonnes against 81.47 million tonnes projected earlier. Ahead of the wheat harvest, the country had buffer foodgrain stock of 47 million tonnes at the start of 2011 in the central pool. A buffer close to double...