The health of RTI activist Ketan Shah, whose has been on an indefinite fast inside the Valsad Nagarpalika premises for eight days now, worsened on Friday, with doctors starting his treatment on the spot. Shah went on hunger strike after his shop was demolished by the Nagarpalika officials following his allegations against Valsad Nagarpalika president Raju Patel, accusing him of illegal encroachment on government land. Shah had made representations to...

Participants at a United Nations summit today outlined a 10-year plan to support the world’s most vulnerable countries overcome poverty, calling on the private sector to play a greater role in the fight, urging wealthy nations to step up their aid commitments and demanding the elimination of many trade barriers. The Istanbul Programme of Action to spur development and economic growth was made public at the end of the Fourth UN...

The cheapest car in the world proved the costliest for a 34-year-old Left Front CPI-M government in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, as the communists lost the elections here by a wide margin. The outcome is the result of an anti-left movement that began in 2006 following the controversial takeover of farmland to create a manufacturing plant for Tata Motors’ small family vehicle called the ‘Nano’. A sweep by a regional...

A new 10-year blueprint for assisting the poorest countries on the planet to join the league of the more fortunate ones was approved Friday at the closing of the Fourth U.N. Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) held May 9- 13 here. The Istanbul Programme for Action, a 50-page plan negotiated for a week by heads of state and diplomats from both least developed and economically developed states, contemplates the...

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus resigned as managing director of Grameen Bank, the micro-credit network he pioneered, expressing the hope that it would retain its "independence and character". The government has rejected the demand by the bank's directors that Yunus be made the bank's chairman and has also turned down the argument of the bank being "independent", saying it is subject to the laws governing the banking sector. In his resignation letter made...