Category: South Asia

DHAKA, December 9, 2010 (AFP) – Bangladesh has announced a sweeping deregulation scheme for its power sector in a bid to ease the country’s crippling electricity shortages, a senior government official said. Foreign investors will now be allowed to set up power plants without winning a government contract and to sell on the national grid, […]

MONTREAL, December 9, 2010 (AFP) – India’s SpiceJet has ordered 15 Bombardier Q400 NextGen regional aircraft valued at 446 million US dollars, the Canadian company announced Thursday. Gary Scott, president of Bombardier’s commercial aircraft division, said he expects India to buy up to 600 aircraft in the 20 to 149 seat category over the next […]

DHAKA, December 8, 2010 (AFP) – Riot police took to the streets of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday to control thousands of angry investors protesting over a dramatic fall in shares on the national stock exchange. Protesters burnt office furniture in front of the Dhaka Stock Exchange building and brought traffic in the centre of […]

NEW DELHI, December 9, 2010 (AFP) – The Indian government won headlines around the world when it unveiled a prototype 35-dollar tablet computer in July, but questions are now growing over whether the project is just a pipe dream. “The One Laptop per Child Association in the US was difficult to comprehend and there was […]

NEW DELHI, December 7, 2010 (AFP) – India will attend Friday’s Nobel peace prize ceremony in Oslo for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, the country’s national news agency said on Tuesday. The Press Trust of India (PTI) did not give details or say who will represent India at the ceremony. Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu […]

NEW DELHI, December 7, 2010 (AFP) – India’s hunger for new technology is as sharp in its countless small villages as in its shiny office towers or shopping malls — and businesses are waking up to an area of massive potential growth. Specific designs being aimed at Indian villagers include a mobile phone cash-transfer system, […]

DHAKA, December 6, 2010 (AFP) – A Bangladeshi-flagged vessel hijacked by pirates in the Arabian Sea off the coast of India was heading towards the Somali coast on Monday, the head of Bangladesh’s shipping department said. Officials said Bangladesh’s shipping department had also contacted a British anti-piracy office in Dubai and a regional anti-piracy office […]

NEW DELHI, December 5, 2010 (AFP) – An explosion of working-age people in India could serve as an engine of economic growth — or bring social turmoil, experts say. Over the next two decades, India’s working-age population will increase by 240 million — four times the entire population of Britain — according to investment house […]

NEW DELHI, November 30, 2010 (AFP) – India’s economy grew a forecast-beating 8. 9 percent year-on-year in July-September, data showed Tuesday, underscoring the country’s brisk recovery from the global financial crisis. The healthy numbers brought temporary cheer to the Congress-led government, buffeted by a string of scandals including a damaging telecom corruption scam which could […]

KABUL, November 29, 2010 (AFP) – Leaked US documents on Monday painted President Hamid Karzai’s controversial younger brother as a corrupt drugs baron, exposing deep US concerns about graft undermining the war against the Afghan Taliban. Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks has started to release quarter of a million confidential US diplomatic cables, detailing embarrassing and inflammatory […]

DHAKA, November 28, 2010 (AFP) – In the home of cheap clothing manufacturing, the record price of cotton is causing havoc for producers — and the pain will pass down the chain to buyers in developed countries, analysts say. Bangladesh, the third-biggest producer of clothes worldwide, is one of the cheapest locations for manufacturing in […]

NEW DELHI, November 22, 2010 (AFP) – India gave the green light on Monday for the construction of a second international airport in the commercial capital Mumbai, a two billion dollar project that was ten years in the making. “Today, formally the environmental clearance has been given to the Navi Mumbai Project,” Environment Minister Jairam […]