"Malyam is one of the 13 villages in Andhra Pradesh, a coastal state in southern India, that have been fighting off 'predator' sand dunes every sowing season, resulting in a poor produce year after year. Farmers maintaining small plots of agricultural lands are heavily affected. Strong surface winds carry away the ploughed loose fertile top soil resulting in a poor produce year after year.

Amid increasing desertification and faced with falling agricultural produce, people resort to short-term, unsustainable survival methods even if they run the risk of endangering their long-term futures. For instance, in Anantapur, 96,000 hectares of farm land are being irrigated by deep bore wells -- a practice that contributes to aquifer depletion -- compared to 30,000 hectares irrigated by canals and 8,000 hectares by tanks."

"A frigid Siberian cold front gripping northern and central China has caused coal and power shortages as residents scrambled to keep warm, state press reported Wednesday. The icy weather has strained the nation's power grid, with the eastern city of Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong and Hubei cutting power to some areas as they rationed electricity.

With coal supplies at some power plants in central China down to about three days, the price of the fossil fuel was rapidly rising. Coal producers in China's north had begun charging up to 25 percent more per ton, while in Guangdong users were paying up to 30 percent more per ton and expecting higher prices."

"Vietnam's development of urban areas is reducing the amount of space for greenery, transportation and social services. More than 700 new urban areas have been built nationwide over the past several years, but almost none of them had allowed enough place for public markets, schools, parks, sports grounds, administrative offices, medical centers and social facilities.

People seeking these services and facilities now travel to old urban areas, causing more traffic problems. New buildings encroaching on public land are worsening traffic jams and blocking drainage systems, adding to city flooding every time it rains. And local residents are also guilty of building on river banks and over public sidewalks."

"The global financial crisis has provided some food for thought to governments of the region. The need for regional financial cooperation has never been so great. Within the ambit of the Asian financial cooperation, a regional currency arrangement could serve as a building block for an additional global reserve currency. There is an on-going debate regarding diversifying currency reserve from the US dollar to other currencies, or a basket of currencies along the lines of SDRs.

China has proposed the development of a transnational reserve currency system based on a basket of the world's major currencies, similar to the current SDR scheme of the IMF. However, the basket of SDR currencies needs to be expanded from dollar, pound, euro and yen to include other regional currencies like Chinese yuan. One possible way forward is to make the IMF an expanded SDRs-based organization."

"Chinese banks must carefully pace their lending this year because heavy issuance of loans amid industrial overcapacity has created growing credit risks, China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said. Mr Zhou also said that the experience of the international financial crisis showed that it was not enough to simply focus on inflation and that the People's Bank of China considered a wider range of issues in determining its monetary policy, including international balance of payments.

To that end, he highlighted reserve requirement ratios as an important tool in the central bank's arsenal. Forcing banks to put aside more of their deposits on reserve is a way for China to mop up cash flowing into the economy from its bulging current and capital account surpluses."

"The Indonesian government has established a state-owned guarantee fund to protect investors in infrastructure projects from any 'unfavorable' policies that could hurt their investments. The fund will act like an insurance company, compensating investors for losses if, for example, a promised tariff hike on a toll road did not materialize.

Investors will have to pay premiums but not as high as those charged by traditional insurance firms. The objective is to reduce the cost of financing public-private partnerships. PPP projects often find it difficult to get financing. Banks are reluctant to provide loans due to the long durations and high-risk nature of the projects."

"Mekong Delta provinces once rushed to roll out the red carpet for talented graduates to work in rural areas. They offered sums of tens or even hundreds of millions of dong and preferential accommodations. Yet few degree-holders have arrived, mainly because of biased working conditions. Ca Mau province was the first area that initiated a program to bring scholars, beginning in 2003. However, they cannot find anyone willing to come.

Soc Trang has also failed to attract any graduates. Some analysts claim that the salaries are not attractive enough to lure people to these areas. Meanwhile, complicated pay procedures have discouraged intellectuals with high degrees and kept them away."

"Bangladesh is seeking to obtain duty-free access for 232 products, including readymade garments, to the Indian market. The government will also propose shortening of the list of sensitive goods so that Bangladesh can export more products to India and reduce the trade imbalance in bilateral trade.

India has 460 products on its sensitive list. The demands will be placed when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visits India on January 10. Commerce Minister Faruk Khan said Bangladesh would demand removal of all kinds of non-tariff barriers to Bangladeshi exports to India."

"The Indonesian government's 2009 tax revenue showed a minor fall due to the global economic downturn, in contrast to significant annual increases in the previous four years. Tax revenue as of the end of December reached Rp 556.77 trillion ($59.57 billion), down by 0.93 percent from 2008, equivalent to 98 percent of the target set by the government.

According to the 2010 state budget, the government is targeting to gain Rp 715.53 trillion from tax this year, up by 28 percent from estimated tax revenue in 2009. Manufacturing industry is expected to contribute more to next year's tax revenue."

"A recent study to assess the state of e-governance in India found that the largest cities, especially those with more than 10 million inhabitants, fared relatively well in their preparedness towards becoming digital compared to smaller cities. In the area of services, Greater Mumbai again had a perfect score, followed by Hyderabad.

Cities with both low information and low service-orientation websites were Lucknow, Agra, Kanpur, Asansol and Dhanbad. Though Indian cities are still evolving in their digital status, governments, private organizations and citizens should take cognisance of the fact that connectivity and information-sharing are the stepping stones for transparency and accountability in governance."

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