"A new study in Gujarat, one of Western India's poorest states has shown that solar lanterns could represent a solution for rural communities with insufficient lighting. With India's large and growing population, solar lanterns, using the country's abundant sunlight, could be the cleanest and most practical energy alternative available.

The lanterns cost $87.50 and one lantern can provide light for more than six hours after a full day's charge and can save about 100 liters of kerosene per year, which in turn reduces CO2 emissions. Researchers found that expenditures for kerosene and electricity dropped significantly after the introduction of solar lanterns. Overall, each household saved $91.55 in energy costs per year, a huge savings on an annual family income ranging from $150 to $250."

"PRC has emerged in the past two years as the world's leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost. With greater efficiency, a power plant burns less coal and emits less carbon dioxide for each unit of electricity it generates.

Experts say the least efficient plants in China today convert 27 to 36 percent of the energy in coal into electricity. The most efficient plants achieve an efficiency rate as high as 44 percent, meaning they can cut global warming emissions by more than a third compared with the weakest plants. China's improvements are starting to have an effect on climate models."

"The Thai government has spent more than $4.37 billion on rice price pledging but the programs have done little to shore up agricultural prices in the long run. In fact, the middlemen and the rice millers have become the biggest beneficiaries of the program, not the farmers. Future assistance measures should help farmers develop their productivity in a comprehensive manner, including the selection of rice strains, the increase of yields, fertilizer supplies and, most importantly, irrigation systems.

Viet Nam has set a good example for developing rice production in a sustainable manner, and its yields per unit of land are now much better than Thailand's. Instead of focusing on price levels, the government should concentrate on how to help farmers reduce the cost of production. The government has lost more than $584 million from the rice-pledging program. This sum of money should have been spent in other more sensible ways -- to produce sustainable results that directly benefit farmers."

"The latest data at Bank Indonesia shows that credits outstanding as of March remained rather flat at Rp 1,286 trillion ($110 billion) compared to Rp 1,285 trillion at the end of December, while banks' placements in government bonds and Bank Indonesia's certificates remained quite large, sometimes reaching as high as one third of all third-party funds in the banking industry.

Without concerted action to restore lending, we could face the prospect of a much sharper downturn, irrespective of the fiscal stimulus. The problem is that faced with increasingly high business risks that could sharply increase bad credit, banks have been pulling back on lending to protect themselves against the possibility of depreciating levels of non-performing loans. If this trend continues, the drying up of credit could cause severe damage to consumer confidence and slow down economic activity."

"A campaign is under way to replace all normal light bulbs in Tajikistan with energy-saving ones by the end of this year. The government sees the move as vital to economizing on electricity. Despite having several large hydroelectric power stations either in operation or nearing completion, Tajikistan still suffers from severe power outages, especially in the winter.

If domestic consumers changed their bulbs, the saving on power could amount to 3.2 billion kilowatt-hours a year -- a huge proportion of the estimated national annual shortage, put at 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours. And that is not including industry, commerce and the public sector."

"At a time when global food crisis threatens India, System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has proved to be a boon for the country's paddy farmers. Using less water, seeds and chemical inputs, this technology has increased rice production manifold in several regions across India. The SRI is based on the principle that the rice plant doesn't necessarily need to be submerged in water to grow.

Traditionally, a nursery bed is first prepared, the seeds are sown, and the saplings are allowed to grow for 25 days, after which they are transplanted into the main field in bunches of six to seven, scattered six inches apart. But in SRI, 8-12-day-old saplings are transplanted and spaced 10 inches apart. Young saplings adjust easily to the soil while the distance between them allows for more nutrition. Less water and more spacing between plants create an 'aerobic condition' that promotes better plant growth."

"Despite the deep global recession and the massive fall of oil income by Middle Eastern countries and the fall in the boom in the Gulf countries, remittances sent home by overseas Pakistanis grew up by over 19 percent in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year. Inflows from Middle Eastern countries registered a high growth of 34 percent.

The State Bank reported that Pakistan received a total of $6.355 billion (double the foreign direct investment so far received this year) as remittances, which was over $1 billion or 19.5 percent higher than the same period last year. In the last 10 months, Pakistanis in the U.S. sent $1.435 billion helping the country to keep its vulnerable foreign exchange reserves intact."

"Major ports in PRC are hopeful that rising domestic trade volumes will help them counter the continuous contractions in cargo from overseas markets. Most ports are adding more domestic shipping lines and expanding the local network to cash in on the 4-trillion-yuan economic stimulus package rolled out by the Chinese government to boost local consumption.

Shenzhen Yantian port, the country's second largest port by container throughput, is increasingly looking at domestic business as the global economic recession is eroding into China's foreign trade. The port has added some domestic shipping lines, although not many, and it is also planning to expand into the bulk cargo sector for the domestic market."

"The Ministry of Transport has announced a plan to upgrade and expand Viet Nam's international airports, with four located in the south, two in the north and four in the central region. The government has approved a new international airport project for Phu Quoc, which will get underway at the end of this year. Once operational, the airport will be able to receive 7 million passengers annually.

The Long Thanh airport project in the southern province of Dong Nai is considered the largest. It is designed for an annual capacity of up to 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo, covering an area of 5,000 hectares and costing as much as $5 billion. Once put into operation, the airport will serve as a transit hub for international passengers in the region."

"If Sri Lanka is looking forward to achieving a sustainable rapid development process, it is necessary to erase the anti-growth evils permanently. The country faces budget and foreign exchange problems. The government should not introduce anymore irreversible and unproductive expenditure patterns to government spending.

At the same time, the government should carefully examine whether each rupee that the government spends is at least equivalent to what is paid by the tax payers in terms of its benefits to the economy and society. The country should not depend on private remittances and foreign borrowings to cushion the continuing balance of payments problem."

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