Since the economy of the North East is basically agro-based, the primary reason for its poverty is agricultural backwardness. The very fact that the region has to look after 3.8 per cent of India's population with only 2.7 per cent of national income earned by its economy shows what poverty-distance it has to meet in order to catch up with the rest of the country. The region's per capita income-distance from all-India average has increased from Rs 1,706 in 1993-94 to Rs 7,000 in 2005-06.

Dao Duy Dang remembers the night in 1963 when the lights came on in Uong Bi. "People were so excited," the 70-year-old tea-shop owner says, recalling the cheers that rang through the northern Vietnamese town after one of the country's first coal-fired power plants began operating. "Their whole lives they had wished for electricity." Be careful what you wish for.

World Bank lending to India

The Sri Lankan forestry industry is in for a massive improvement with tIle Asian Development Bank approving a $60 million loan and $400,000 technical assistance granrecently. The grants will help

Activists are pressing the 28-year old Asian Development Bank (ADB) for greater reform of its policies, saying it should do more to reduce poverty instead of just focusing on growth and luring the

THE Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (ireda), the financing arm of the Union ministry of nonconventional energy sources, is finalising a US$ 100 million assistance package from the