Development Issues

By Nitin Jugran

TONK, Rajasthan, Jun 4 (IPS) - Children should be seen, not heard -- an adage that remains in practice in most parts of rural India even today where the orthodox patriarchal traditions continue to hold sway in tightly-knit local communities.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

HIROSHIMA, Japan, Jun 4 (IPS Asia-Pacific/AMF) - In a religiously diverse region that is trying to move beyond a history of tribal and ethnic rivalries, violence in the media and biased history textbooks are the last things that youngsters in Central Asia and the Caucasus countries need.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, May 2 (IPS) - More than gaining the freedom to report on society’s problems Asian media must gauge it’s real contribution to the public‘s needs, especially at a time of increasing commercialisation.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, May 2 (AMF) - The good news is that media, whether mainstream or community-based, can be effective tools in helping to make the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) a reality by 2015. The bad news? It's not happening.

Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, in the lecture he presided over last Dec 10 upon receiving the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, pays homage to the prestigious institution for giving "the highest honour and dignity to the hundreds of millions of women all around the world" who work day and night to bring a better life for their respective families.

HONG KONG - The regional economy in East Asia will post slower growth in 2007 because of a slowdown in America and Europe, and the region could be upset by global market turbulence triggered by U.S. recession jitters, the Asian Development Bank said Thursday.

By Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 22 (IPS) - Vigorous expansion of trade between developing countries has created "a new geography of global trade," but communications have lagged behind this and other processes that have increased the gravitas of the South, participants agreed at a seminar in Brazil.

By Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

NEW DELHI, Nov 19 (IPS) - Chinese President Hu Jintao's four-day visit to India from Monday has revived an old debate on whether the planet's two most populous countries could become closer collaborators rather than cut-throat competitors. Can trade and investment help two of the world's fastest growing economies mend relations marred by decades of mistrust and acrimony?

By Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

HO CHI MINH CITY, Nov 8 (IPS) - Like many of her compatriots, Pham Thi Viet Nga, chief of the Hau Giang Pharmaceutical Co., expects Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to bring both opportunities and challenges.