HITEX all set for ADB meet

Hyderabad, May 2 (UNI) About 2,500 delegates will gather here for four days from tomorrow for the 39th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of Asian Development Bank (ADB) to discuss the role of India and South Asia in a region that is rapidly integrating and the Asia-Pacific region's massive infrastructure needs.

The meet, to be formally inaugurated on May five, will also discuss ways to address poverty in the context of development challenges faced by Asia due to global imbalances and in particular, how ADB could respond to the region's changing needs, the Bank said.

On the eve of the meet, the Bank, in its latest India Country Strategy and Programme, revealed its plans to scale up lending levels to India from an average of around 1.24 billion USD in recent years to around 2.65 billion USD by 2008. ADB's total lending assistance to India till 2005 amounted to about 15.4 billion USD, it said.

Meanwhile, the People's Forum Against Asian Development Bank(PFAA), comprising 97 social movements, struggle groups and NGOs from across Asia, announced holding of parallel sessions against the ADB AGM.

Ms Medha Patkar spreaheading stir against displacement of poor people by the Narmada dam would be among 400 international and 2000 Indian activists participating in the programme, PAADFB member Souparna Lahiri told reporters here Despite elaborate security cover at the HITEX, the venue of the meet, activists of the 'People's Forum Against ADB'(PFAA) and Green Peace slipped into the media enclosure and distributed pamphlets opposing the Bank's entry into India and Asia.

EDs: Pick up suitably from earlier series.

UNI TEAM SM VV AK1947