The trend towards using biogas, electricity and LPG Cylinder in Nepal is increasing, but the fact that still 64 percent of households rely on firewood  for day to day cooking is a massive development problem.

The report “World Economic Situation and Prospects 2013” says that growth in South Asia in 2012 was the slowest in the region in the last ten years – due to inflation, political uncertainity, energy crisis and weakening investor confidence.

Bangladesh signed an agreement with the UN to achieve certain targets as stipulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. It all began in the year 2000 when the new millennium began at the end of the first millennium.

The immediate post-civil war years of 2010 and 2011 in Sri Lanka were trumpeted as record-breaking eight percent or greater annual real growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two consecutive years including the highest ever economic growth rate of 8.3% recorded in 2011. However, the GDP growth rate in 2012 is unlikely to exceed six percent and the prospect for 2013 is even less.

The year 2013 has begun not so well due to various reasons. On the more mundane economic front, there is the alarming news of a big jump in the current account deficit (CAD) which denotes all transactions of currently produced exports of goods and services plus all invisibles like payments for insurance, shipping, tourism, and cash transfers like remittances, interests, profits and dividends, minus all imports and other similar outgoing payments.

How long will the estimated gas reserve run" is a question frequently asked. Estimates published in the media show that the gas reserve of the country will be exhausted by 2015, 2017 or 2020. A more realistic assumption may be made by looking into the available data.

The global markets were poised to move into safe haven bonds and gold in the new year as the US confronted its fiscal cliff. The set of agreements reached early Tuesday, which combine a rollback of tax cuts for those with an annual income of over $4,00,000 with a promised reduction of $24 billion in government spending, essentially gives emerging market economies the hope of more investments from abroad.

It is an irony but also a compulsion for Nepal to send its youth in the prime of their lives to other countries for employment instead of using them at home for national development. The remittance sent home by these migrant workers is not a reliable source of income. Any small change in the employing country can bring everything to a stop and ruin the national economy based solely on remittance.

The banking sector in Bangladesh has come out of its infancy in the course of the last four decades since Independence. The sector has matured and achieved a lot.

£1.1m record-breaking success for the East London Mosque!" We should feel proud of this news headline as almost all the money was donated by expatriate Bangladeshis in the UK. On one night in Ramadan thousands of people helped break the fundraising record for the third year in a row.