SUJAN PIYA'S BLOG

• One billion people are hungry. Temperature rises of 2 to 3 oC will mean an extra 200 million people could face hunger. • If we carry on pumping greenhouse gases (like CO2) into the atmosphere, there’s a 50% chance the global temperatures will rise by 5 oC or more in the coming decades. • One coal power station pumps out the same amount of CO2 in a year as 30 developing countries combined. • The UK is the windiest country in Europe. We could power ourselves several times over using renewable energy. • If we covered just 3% of the Sahara desert with solar panels we could generate all the electricity the world needs. • Kenya has the highest number of solar panels, per person, in the world. • The Philippines already generates 27% of its electricity from geothermal energy. Source- Action Aid

Many of India’s problems are summed up in its mismanagement of water. Now a scanty monsoon has made matters much worse Sep 10th 2009 | VEERALAPALAM, ANDHRA PRADESH, AND LUBANA TEKU, PUNJAB From  The Economist  print edition RAINFALL last month encouraged Haniya, a middle-aged member of the Lambada tribe of southern Andhra Pradesh (AP), to inspect his one-acre (0.4-hectare) field. Some speckles of green, to show the red earth had held enough water for weeds to shoot, would have tempted him to sow cotton. But, towards the end of AP’s monsoon rainy season, the field was parched and bare. If it rains again, Haniya may sow. If not? He gave the reply of peasant farmers in India and poor, dry places everywhere: “Only God knows.” Back in his village of Veeralapalam, light-skinned Lambadi farmers gathered. Most had scattered some cotton or lentil seed after the rain. But it had better rain again: none had access to irrigation from a dozen wells sunk 90 metres into central India’s la...

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has launched a venture aiming to invest in food production worldwide. The Qatari initiative claims to be distinct from similar moves by other Gulf Arab states in that it is focused on the acquisition and development of existing agribusiness companies rather than involving the lease of large tracts of farmland. These large-scale land-lease deals have attracted criticism on the grounds that they could impair the rights of existing smallholders and damage the host country's own food security. Hassad Food, established by the QIA last year, has recently announced plans to invest US$500m in buying stakes in agricultural companies around the world as part of the government's strategy to secure adequate supply of food at reasonable prices. Qatar, like most of its Gulf Arab peers, depends heavily on imported food, buying some 95% of its requirements from abroad. Hassad's chairman, Nasser Mohamed al-Hajri, said that the company was in talks wit...

Do you agree with Milten Friedman?

With the global economy still in recession, two important questions arise for Asia: how soon will the recession end, and how vigorous will the region's recovery be? The purpose of this paper is to look at past recessions and recoveries in Asia in order to shed light on these issues. Several important stylized facts emerge from this study: (i) recessions accompanied by financial stress—notably, stress in domestic banking sectors—have been substantially longer and deeper than the norm, suggesting that the current recession could have been even costlier and more drawn out had Asia's banks not entered the downturn in such strong shape; (ii) recoveries in Asia have been weak because they were typically driven by a single engine: exports.