"India's ambitious rural electrification program will reach a little more than half the 125,000 villages it sought to cover by the deadline of March 2009. A government review of Bharat Nirman, the rural infrastructure program, found that only 47,837 villages had been electrified by 30 April.

The program also looks likely to miss another target. Only 2.4 million so-called below the poverty line or poor households have been provided with an electricity connection. By 2009, this number will rise to six million; the target was 23 million. The scheme is yet to make an impact in Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern states due to security and law and order problems, non-availability of turnkey contractors and high costs."

"It will take years to finish rebuilding the 800,000 homes and 4,000 schools destroyed by Cyclone Nargis. Although nobody is dying of starvation, paddy fields are still inundated with salty water, making it impossible for many farmers to grow the rice that is needed. About half of the area's cattle, pigs and poultry died and 70 percent of its fishing boats sank.

The shortage of rice is the most serious immediate problem. Its price has doubled since the cyclone, reducing villagers to one meal a day, and the paddy fields where they had just begun harvesting when the storm struck are still a muddy mess. Prices are now high enough for anyone with a crop to make a good profit, but there is no seed for replanting, which they should be doing for the next harvest, in November."

"Four new railways, including one dedicated passenger line, have been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, for construction. The longest among the four is the Xinjiang Kashi-Xinjiang Hetian Railway, with the 487 km-line passing through Yingjisha, Shache, Yecheng and Pishan.

China plans to build a total of 7,820 km rail lines this year and foreign investment shall be introduced in the construction of railways. The Ministry of Railways said a total of 300 billion yuan ($42 billion) will be invested in China's railway construction this year. China now has more than 76,000 km of railways, ranking third in the world by length after the United States and Russia."

"India is making impressive progress towards achieving the UN's millennium development goals (MDGs) such as eradicating extreme poverty and ensuring universal primary education, says the government's report on MDG 2007. India's extremely poor population has come down to 21.8 percent in 2004-05 from 26.1 percent in 1999-00.

According to the report, the proportion of children studying up to Class V in primary schools after they are enrolled in Class I has increased to 71 percent from 59.3 percent in 2000-01. Such a decline in dropout rate in primary education is mainly because of India's ambitious campaign on education for all, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, launched in 2000."

"Indonesia's President Yudhoyono agreed Friday to increase cooperation with the Organization of Economic Development (OECD). Yudhoyono said after meeting with the OECD Secretary Gurria that the cooperation with the group would boost Indonesia's efforts to increase investments in the country.

The OECD on Thursday published its first comprehensive economic assessment of Indonesia. According to the report, Indonesia's rules on foreign direct investment are more restrictive than those of most other OECD countries, making its ratio of financial direct investment to GDP among the lowest in Southeast Asia."

"Up to 30 million people of Bangladesh live in chronic poverty and have not benefited from economic growth, economists said Thursday at the launch of The Chronic Poverty Report 2008-09. Various reasons including bias in poverty mapping and disproportionate resource allocation by the government, donors and NGOs were behind the phenomenon.

Growth is helping reduce poverty in Bangladesh. However, 25 to 30 million people are trapped in poverty and have not been benefited from the country's economic growth. It was suggested that independent monitoring was essential for assessing implementations of poverty reduction initiatives."

"The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has been quite successful in sustaining low prices and keeping down inflation. Due to pressure from abroad, especially from high food, oil and fuel prices, inflation suddenly surged in 2008. But it is still much lower than neighboring countries. Inflation was only 2.8 percent last year.

Banking in the Philippines is a very tightly controlled sector. Most banks are family-owned. They don't lend to shaky businesses and lend only to the old blue-chip companies. This made banking here a poor contributor to massive economic growth. Banks always demand collateral. And it is this conservatism and family-oriented nature of the banks that saved it from the internal earthquake that hit banks abroad."

"The number of 'microborrowers' worldwide increased by 17 percent in 2006, benefiting both communities and the environment, according to the latest statistics released by the Worldwatch Institute. The sudden and significant success of microfinance is increasing pressure on many microfinance institutions to become more commercially oriented in their operations.

Some analysts fear that this shift may cause microfinance institutions to raise interest rates or distribute profits to shareholders rather than reinvesting them in microfinance activities, hindering their original mission of poverty reduction. Proponents of private investment counter that commercializing microfinance is needed to attract the large sums of capital that will allow the practice to spread rapidly."

"Vietnam's total new investment capital in past six months was four times higher than in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. The problem is to make a careful choice of projects to prevent some areas from being too overloaded with foreign direct investment (FDI) capital.

The abundant flow of FDI into Vietnam has encountered a number of difficulties arising from inadequately trained labor, weak management and improper investment in infrastructure. Vietnam's FDI attraction currently ranks 6th in the world and third in Asia, after China and India."

"Conventional wisdom that a fast growing Chinese economy would be immune from global turmoil has proven to be wrong. Like the rest of the world, China has declared war on inflation which hurts the country's poor. But by pursuing a populist policy in the name of building a harmonious society, China may waste an opportunity to end distorting policies and put its economic house on a sounder footing.

The question remains whether China, still growing fast and flush with cash, should follow the West in fighting inflation or take care of the hard-hit poor. The bottom line is that China's unique economic profile allows for remarkable policy leeway to support strong economic growth in the face of the spread of global stagflation. However, Chinese policymakers should realize that an economic model to sustain growth for the longer term can only be achieved by removing severe distortions stemming from artificially low prices of land and pollution, as well as energy. For China's own good, artificially low inflation must end."

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