WORLD
- The White House today emphasised on the need to have countries like India and China on board on climate change, which it said is crucial for success of the Copenhagen meet in December on the issue.
- The number of hungry people will pass 1 billion this year(2009) for the first time, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said.Food stress jumped toward the top of the global agenda after soaring commodity prices in 2007 and 2008 sparked riots in 30 countries, including many tottering on the brink of severe shortages or widespread hunger. The World Bank estimates that food inflation during that period pushed an additional 100 million people into deep poverty, on top of a billion that were already scraping by on less than $1 a day. The three most populous countries in South Asia also face food precariousness: Pakistan, ranked 11th, is at “extreme risk,” while Bangladesh and India are both at “high risk”, ranked 20th and 25th respectively.
- Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and the Red-Green Coalition win the Norwegian parliamentary election.
- Egypt's top Islamic authority, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, defends women's rights to wear trousers in public following the high-profile court case in neighbouring Sudan where women, including Lubna al-Hussein, were flogged for dressing in the garments.
- With the aim of promoting public private participation (PPP) model in the urban transport system, the Centre has decided to give awards for the best PPP initiative in the sector.In addition, the awards constituted for the first time by the Urban Development Ministry, would select the best environment-friendly project in urban transport to encourage green mode of transport in the country.
- India has designed a new version of Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) which will use low enriched uranium along with thorium as fuel, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar announced in Vienna. The already designed and developed 300 MWe AHWR by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, which is expected to start production soon, is mainly a thorium-fuelled reactor with several advanced passive safety features.
- India will aim at scrapping irrelevant government schemes and reduce subsidies in the next fiscal year, the finance ministry said, as it grapples to keep a lid on spending and rein in the fiscal deficit. The government's stimulus spending to revive a slowing economy has strained its finances and could take the fiscal deficit to a 16-year high of 6.8 percent of GDP.
- The Chief Financial Officers of listed companies can be any person with financial or accounting background, a Securities and Exchange Board of India committee has said, setting aside a proposal by the market regulator to appoint only chartered accountants as CFOs.
- The Israeli war film Lebanon, directed by Samuel Maoz, wins the Golden Lion at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.
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