The climate talks ended with uncertainty over the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and no agreement on binding emission reductions. The difference between optimists and pessimists is that the optimists have more fun, joked Elias Freig-Delgado, a member of Mexico's Ministry of Finance Special CO{-2} Task Force and the working groups of the U.N. High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing. Mr. Delgado was speaking at the Forest Day meeting during...

Cutting carbon emissions: Scores of rich countries made pledges over the last year to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 under the Copenhagen accord but they were not incorporated in the official UN process. Cancun now formally puts those pledges into UN documentation, although they may increase or decrease in future. For the first time, developing countries also agreed to look at how they can cut emissions in the future...

Large scale child labour persists in India, mostly in the agricultural sector and the informal Economy despite initiatives by the government and instances of commercial sexual exploitation of minors are oft reported, a US report on the issue said on Wednesday. According to the India section of the annual report of the Department of Labor, children are exploited in the worst forms of child labour with a majority working in agriculture,...

Indian Centre for Islamic Finance delegation makes presentation at Yojana Bhavan The Indian Centre for Islamic Finance (ICIF) has made out a strong case before Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council member V. S. Vyas for introducing interest-free banking in the country at the earliest to ensure “inclusive growth with innovation” in accordance with the recommendations of the Planning Commission's Raghuram Rajan Committee. An ICIF delegation from New Delhi, led by its general...

This week’s good news on food price inflation was evened out by the bad news on fuel prices hike. But, both were along expected lines. Thanks to the so-called “base effect” — the fact that last year this time food prices were rising sharply and since last year’s prices become the denominator in this year’s price ratio, the rate of inflation would be expected to moderate — and to an...