"As India's urban spaces start to burst at the seams, the story of deprivation is being repeated ad nauseam. India's ranks of the middle class grew by 205 million in the 17 years to 2008. However, more than 70 percent of the middle class is in the lowest segment. More than 150 million eke out a vulnerable existence on the border of an international poverty line of $1.25 per day.

The fragility of the vast majority of Indians is largely domestic in origin emerging from the cumulative lack of entitlements such as stable incomes medical insurance (just 3 percent of India's population enjoys it), recourse to education and everything else that eases upward mobility. India's middle class is estimated to be somewhere between 30 million and 300 million. A part of the reason for the wide divergence is the use of different criteria to quantify the middle class."

"As the contradictions of Asia's water challenges have been laid bare this summer, with millions affected by flooding while others are hit by droughts, one thing has been made clearer: the coming water crisis could exacerbate already simmering domestic and regional tensions. It's an alarming pattern-both flooding and dry spells across Asia are becoming more intense, and occurring more frequently, each year.

So how should Asian governments respond? Regional governments find plenty of time to meet and discuss trade imbalances, poverty and terrorism. But recent crises have demonstrated that it's time they also stopped seeing problems such as the floods in Pakistan as simply national, internal issues and started taking a regional perspective instead. Failure to do so may well prove nothing short of disastrous."

"Economic ministers from 16 countries have unofficially approved a 25 trillion yen plan to develop infrastructure in the ASEAN region. The plan covers 717 projects, including the construction of roads, bridges, seaports, airports, industrial complexes and power stations, to be completed by 2020. The plan is expected to be officially approved in October, and a framework for funding and execution is to be drawn up by the end of December.

Three regions have been identified as focus points for the infrastructure projects, and are referred to under the plan as the Mekong Basin Integral Development; the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines East Asian Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA); and the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand (IMT) Growth Triangle. The envisioned projects include building a highway across the Indochinese Peninsula, constructing new ports and improving existing ones in Vietnam and Myanmar that will be arterially connected to the highway, and upgrading the Indian port of Chennai."

"If you look at all eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they are all interconnected, interdependent, and one of the cross cutting themes is gender equality and women's empowerment. If women are empowered, if women are literate, there is very clear evidence from various researchers all over the world that it would have a positive impact on reduction of maternal mortality, infant and child mortality, and it would help in education on the issue of child nutrition.

Engaging women in all decision-making processes is essential. It is already evident that women leaders, through the 50 percent reservation in local panchayats, have performed really well in key issues like accessibility to potable water because these are the issues that affect women. Those local bodies have seen positive changes in terms of maternal mortality and focus on education because women feel empowered to play a monitoring role of government services and its delivery."

"Philippine export sales to Southeast Asia accounted for just 8.7% of total sales to the world in 2009. Experts suggest the trade imbalance partly stems from the makeup of the Philippines' export portfolio, which caters more to non-ASEAN members. More importantly, it could also be due to the country's inability to attract investments that would have made it a more active player.

Roughly two-thirds of the Philippines' export sales are brought in by electronic components, most of which are shipped off to non-ASEAN members for further assembly. Finished goods like furniture, garments, and processed food, meanwhile, mostly bypass the region as the Philippines' niche in higher-priced products find more willing consumers in richer economies."

"Asia's postcrisis growth strategy should emphasise green growth or environmental sustainability. The majority of Asians live in unhealthy environments where the air, water and land are polluted. Our forests and natural habitats are rapidly disappearing. Our eco-systems and biological diversity are in great jeopardy. Our cities are becoming less and less liveable.

China and India may be this century's greatest growth stories, but, unless they embrace environmental sustainability, they could also pose serious threats to our planet's future. Singapore is a small country, but it has a big lesson to share with Asia. The lesson is that it is possible to reconcile rapid economic development with care for the environment."

"Although a plan to build a north-south high-speed railway connecting Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam has hit a snag following an unusual move by the state's legislature not to approve it for further study, the head of the railway is calling for continued support from Japan. Vietnam has expressed its intention to adopt the shinkansen system for its project to build a 1,600-km high-speed railway linking the two cities in as little as 5 1/2 hours.

The head of the railway said Vietnam wants to introduce Japanese technology because it intends to adopt the so-called electric multiple unit style, which has been increasingly used for high-speed rail systems around the world. The conventional Vietnamese railway is single track and not electrified yet. To jump from that stage to the shinkansen, Vietnam needs to train personnel and enact necessary legislation."

"China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), has proposed a quick launch of reforms in income distribution to curb the widening wealth gap in the country. The proposal was included in a research report on distribution of national income completed by the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee of the NPC. The reforms should seek to enlarge the middle class until it becomes the largest sector in society, the proposals say. The report also offers proposals on taxation and social security.

The proposed reforms come at a time when more and more Chinese are complaining that the country's economic growth has failed to benefit their incomes. The proportion of the total income that Chinese citizens receive from the distribution of national income fell sharply to 57.9 percent in 2007, compared to 68 percent 20 years ago, according to the People's Bank of China."

"Bangladesh workers employed in at least 34 flourishing industrial sectors do not yet have any legal minimum wages, and wages for a dozen other industrial sectors have not been revised. The government is sitting on a proposal of the Minimum Wage Board for fixing or reviewing legal minimum wages for a dozen industrial sectors having several million employees.

The Board is currently struggling to get minimum wages fixed for the money-spinning ready-made garment sector acceptable by both employers and workers. The sector that netted $12 billion in export earnings last year, employs three million workers, mostly women."

"The Indonesian government is planning to reduce the national poverty rate from the present 13.33 percent to 8-10 percent by 2014. According to Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, almost half of the country's 33 provinces had higher poverty rates than the national average. Most of the poor are living in rural areas where rural economic institutions were weak in supporting the agricultural sector.

The programs to be promoted by the government to help reduce the number of the poor include Family-based Integrated Assistance Program, Community Empowerment Program, and the Micro and Small-Scale Business Empowerment Program. In the 2011 Draft State Budget, the government allocated Rp61.5 trillion in funds for social allowance expenditures for the poor."

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