China is all set to become a leading trade partner of India in next five years. US is a top trade partner of India by now. The mutual trade between two countries is expected to touch $100-bn mark by 2013-14. The bilateral trade between the two countries would reach at 50 billion dollar mark in the fiscal ending March 2009.

India has a significant economic partnership with European Union with 56 billion euro trade. The trade would reach at 100-billion euro in the next five years as per the target of recent India-EU Summit at Marseilles (France).

London, Oct. 11 : India, South Korea and Taiwan should join the global trend and immediately establish a moratorium on the death penalty, the rights group Amnesty International has said.

In an appeal to mark World Day Against the Death Penalty, Amnesty said these three nations had stopped executing criminals in recent years and should make that move official, setting an example for the rest of Asia.

New Delhi, Oct 11 : Reserve Bank of India Governor D. Subbarao has said that the fundamentals of the Indian economy continue to be strong.

The RBI Governor, who is attending the Annual Meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, has said that though the Indian banks have some exposure to the distressed financial instruments, but it is very small compared to the overall size of the business.

After armed forces, resentment now prevails among the teaching organizations over the UGC Pay Panel recommendations. The teaching fraternity has said that the Panel report has fallen short of their expectations as it has several "anomalies”. The organizations being led by Delhi University Teachers' Association (DUTA) has complained that the Panel was not sensitive towards some segments among the teaching fraternity.
 
In its press release, DUTA said, “The demand for introduction of Professor’s grade in all colleges to retain talent has not been considered by the committee headed by Prof. G.K. Chadha.”

India attained 50th place in the annual Global Competitiveness 2008-09 ranking. It was at 48th place last year. The list is compiled by the World Economic Forum with its network of Partner Institutes in various countries. 

China has improved its ranking and got 30th spot in the latest list. It attained highest rank among the BRIC economies. US topped the list of 134 countries. The country got the first rank despite financial crisis in the economy.

Washington, Oct 11 : A new study has suggested that the collision between India and Asia set off events that likely caused long-term cooling in Earth''s climate.

According to a report in Science News, the study determines that when the tectonic plate carrying India slammed into Asia about 50 million years ago, the ensuing geological changes triggered a long-term cooling trend.

That trend later enabled Antarctic ice sheets to grow.

Before the collision, volcanoes along the rim of southern Asia spewed immense quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.