Exports from the world’s poorest countries should be granted duty- and quota-free access to markets, according to government officials, economists and academics attending a regional United Nations trade meeting as they warned against a turn towards protectionist policies. More than 100 participants at the first session of the Committee on Trade and Investment of the Economic and Social Commission for ASIa and the Pacific (ESCAP), which wrapped up today in...

Sugar, to mix one’s metaphors, is heading for a perfect storm. And this is being made because of our own policies. By the year-end, retail prices of sugar in Delhi and Mumbai may cross the Rs 40 per kg barrier — an almost 150 per cent increase in less than 15 months. And no, you can’t blame climate change or monsoon failures for this. So, what triggered the sugar crisis? In...

Opening more medical colleges is not the solution to India’s chronic shortage of doctors in the rural areas.  India is the largest supplier of foreign medical graduates to the United States and the United Kingdom. Yet, its own rural areas have remained chronically deprived of professional doctors. The historical antecedents of these shortages could be traced to a landmark health policy document, the Bhore Committee Report of 1946. That report...

The BBC's Chris Morris travels to the main source of the Ganges river to find out why the glaciers are melting. As the first light of dawn lit up the snow-covered mountain peaks, we trekked through a barren landscape 4,000 metres up in the Indian Himalayas, heading for the Gangotri glacier, the main source of the River Ganges. About 2km from our destination, we passed a rock inscribed with the...

A UN Habitat publication warns that inequalities and worsening informal settlements (read slums) could lead to widespread violence and chaos in the cities and towns of the world. The newly-released report titled “Planning Sustainable Cities: Global Report on Human Settlements 2009” says that with almost 200,000 new dwellers flooding into the world cities and towns each day, there is an urgent need to check the mushrooming of such settlements. The...