Evening Edition

Friday March 28, 2008 , 1 min Read

A new United Nations report, Redefining AIDS in Asia: Crafting an Effective Response, was just released and makes an astonishing prediction: 500,000 peaple could die each year people due to AIDS-related illnesses by 2020. (Source: PSD Blog)
Another UN report focuses on the rise of food costs in Asia due to the use of crops in biofuels and urges governments to protect the poor by expanding social welfare and health programs.
In the last fifteen years, 4,750 rural branches closed down in India. These numbers stand in contrast to claims that rural credit has increased.
The Union Cabinet approved the creation of a Farmers’ Debt Relief Fund with an initial corpus of Rs.10,000 crore, which will help small and marginal farmers.
According to CNN Money, Deutsche Asset Management, a unit of Deutsche Bank, plans to launch the first private equity fund specialising in climate change investments. The fund will invest in a broad spectrum of assets including green technology, agriculture and infrastructure related to alternative energy.