News stories by Ranjit Devraj, page 4

HYDERABAD, India, Oct 12 (IPS) - Indian civil society organisations see in the 11th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), underway in this south Indian city, a rare opportunity to highlight alleged neglect of biodiversity along the country’s extensive coastal and marine areas.

, Oct 09 (IPS) - The United Nations 11^th Conference of the Parties  to the Convention on Biological Biodiversity (COP 11 CBD), underway in this southern Indian city, is lost on where to garner the billions of dollars needed to implement the ‘Aichi targets,’ due to be met by 2020.

NEW DELHI, Aug 03 (IPS) - Far-flung South Asian communities, from the high Himalayan slopes to the Indian Ocean coasts, united in the face of extreme and uncertain weather, continue to hold on to the hope that the Rio+20 focus on disaster risk reduction (DRR) will positively influence national policies.

Ignoring widespread concern over the safety, efficacy and cost of pentavalent vaccines, India’s central health ministry has, this month, approved inclusion of the prophylactic cocktail in the universal immunisation programme in seven of its provinces.

At their summit in the Indian capital on Thursday, leaders of the coalition known as BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — made several poignant decisions that experts say hint at the converging of economic and political interests of a disparate regional bloc.

By allowing a generic manufacturer to produce a patented cancer drug at a fraction of its current cost, India has declared that it is not about to abandon its role as the ‘pharmacy of the world’s poor'.

After failing to muster support in parliament for the passage of a watered- down anti-corruption bill, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must find ways to satisfy opposition parties, allies and civil society that his United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is serious about curbing graft in the New Year.

If India’s powerful central government that rules over the destinies of 1.2 billion people quails before a slight 74-year-old man, it is because he is armed with a weapon that has rarely failed in this country — extreme renunciation through a fast-unto-death.

Mining gems and other valuable minerals may provide, the Pakistan government hopes, alternate careers to militancy in the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), bordering Afghanistan.

The discovery that treasures lying in the vaults of an ancient temple in Thiruvananthapuram may be worth more than 25 billion dollars is raising questions regarding the vast wealth owned by religious shrines in this impoverished country.