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The work of David Malpass at the World Bank in approving $1 billion for India's coronavirus emergency response and health preparedness project. 

This will help India move quickly to setup the contact tracing, isolation centers, treatment facilities, and healthcare preparedness for coronavirus, so that the transmission of coronavirus is strictly limited.

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The World Bank's Jim Yong Kim leads an effort to bring infrastructure development to war torn regions, including $1 billion in investment in the war torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. This would help build hydroelectric power plants, roads and agricultural infrastructure, especially along the border with Uganda and Rwanda. This is where Kim sees the World Bank making the greatest difference. Kim is unique because he brings a background in anthropology and medicine, compared to the background in politics and finance of previous World Bank presidents. He increased committments to sub-Saharan Africa to about $14 billion in the current fiscal year ending June 2013, from $12.2 billion in 2012. This is his first year at the World Bank.

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The World bank president Robert Zoellick in an interview with Sudeep Reddy of the Wall Street Journal. He says its frustrating to see Europe respond to problems in banking, sovereign debt and competitiveness that have a chance to work, but only to find that the action is a bit late and a bit short every time. He says the Germans are right in insisting that credit cannot be given away freely, and that reforms have to be made. Yet these reforms in the case of Spain and Italy to increase competitiveness will take time and in the meantime both countries will need bridge financing. A direct recapitalization of European banks by the European Financial Stability Facility is needed to avoid this slow and continuous decline in confidence from negative news and uncertainty. Because the problem now is of a longer term nature with debt issues that will take time to resolve and energy price volatility, Zoellick says simply doing short term stimulus and monetary will not work, and a longer term plan needs to be implemented. Zoellick supported the China Development Report of the World Bank and China's DRC which called for a shift in the economy away from reliance on state owned companies and heavy infrastructure spending. Here he says the new stimulus plan for China was necessary because of slowing growth. Yet he hopes China's leaders keep this in mind as they develop solutions for the long term that avoid the rampant credit expansion and investment of the 2008 Stimulus, and come up with a new policy mix....

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Only about a third of the people in southeast Asia are fully vaccinated compared to 58% in the US. With growing inequality and a slowdown in production the supply chain in this region is hit hard. The region includes Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. This region's growth rate is cut from 4.4% in April to 2.5% for 2021 by the World Bank. Manila based Asian Development Bank forecast is for 3.1% growth as coronavirus outbreaks lead to major lockdowns. This happened in Malaysia, Cambodia, and Indonesia. It has also worsened the global supply chain disruptions from clothes to cars and commodities.

As supply chains are restructured, and western countries increase manufacturing at home to avoid higher shipping costs, uncertainty of far flung supply chains, production is likely to decline.

World Bank sees 24 million more people below the poverty line in Asia this year than projected earlier.

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Issues of lack of leadership on climate change that face David Malpass, head of the World Bank are discussed in this report in The Guardian. The Biden administration sees this as a problem because of the need for strong leadership and action in developing countries on climate change, and for financing to support this. Malpass was selected by president Trump for this position and Mr. Trump is known for taking the US out of the Paris Climate change Accords. The climate change related floods, drought and fires in 2022 have created anew awareness of the need for strong action worldwide by all institutions and world leaders.

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Calls at the BRICS leaders New Delhi summit for a change in quotas for the World Bank and the IMF, and a more open merit based selection process for heads of the two financial institutions. According to the Economist Belgium has a larger quota than Brazil at the IMF.

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President Obama picks Dartmouth College president, Jim Yong Kim, as the U.S. choice for president of the World Bank. Kim is a physician who co-founded Partners in Health, a nonprofit organization for providing health care to the poor. He was a former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization. Working with Partners in Health in Lima, Peru, mid-1990's, he helped establish a large scale treatment program for drug resistant tuberculosis. Such programs are being promoted in 40 countries since then. Under the leadership of Mr. Zoellick, the World Bank provided $57 billion in assistance to low and middle income countries in 2011. About $90 billion was raised in a fund to be used for aid to the poor in developing countries, including China and India.

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The Russian economy says a World Bank report in June 2009 won't recover to precrisis levels till 2012. The growth in the first quarter of 2008 reached 8.7%. The drop in GDP in 2009 will be 7.9%. And World Bank chief economist for Russia, Zelkjo Bogetic, says that half a decade will be lost. This is even with the rise in oil prices and the worst of the crisis with the collapsing ruble now put behind Russia. What is keeping things looking grim is the drop in domestic demand, reduced global growth, tight credit, and declining infrastructure investment. The World Bank projects Russia will see increasing number of people slipping back into poverty. By the end of 2009 17.4% of the people in Russia, or about 26.4 million people, will be living in poverty.

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A Hank Aaron phone call in 1967 to Dusty Baker's mother gets Dusty Baker to join the Atlanta Braves when Baker prayed that he did not have to go to the Deep, deep South. Dusty Baker, 72 years, is now the manager of the Houston Astros in the finals of American World Series baseball between the Astros and the Atlanta Braves. Dusty Baker says it was the best thing that happened to him because he met Hank Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth's record in 1974 with 715 homers. 

This started a long friendship with Hank Aaron. Of Hank Aaron Dusty Baker says- "He really taught me discipline. This guy was the most disciplined guy, most hard working guy, most concentration guy I ever met."

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Faced with the prospects of severe hardship in poorer countries, the World Bank gives a realistic forecast for 2009 that shows the world economy shrinking in 2009. It says the neeeds of poorer countries are likely to overwhelm what the IMF and the World Bank can do. And called for seting up a"vulnerability fund". Even if the World Bank tripled its lending in 2009, it would only reach $35 billion. The combined gap the emerging market countries face it says, is at least $270 billion and upto $700 billion in the next 2 years.

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India's economy is at 2.597 trillion dollars at the end of 2017according to World Bank figures, surpassing 2.582 trillion for France. India's economy has doubled in a decade and is expected to pass Germany and Japan in GDP by 2032, to become the third largest after the U.S. and China.

As China's growth has slowed India's is growing. It recovered by July 2017 from one time events designed to actually spur growth such as the effort to implement a nationwide tax for GST. Demonetization also contributes to growth by accelerating the shift away from cash to recorded and taxable transactions. The tax revenue is increasing as less of the economy is in the black market sector. Higher tax revenues enable larger investments in health, education and infrastructure.

New bankruptcy law and speedy resolution of bad debt of banks is also laying the ground for future growth with new investment.

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A draft of the "Common Vision of the World Bank Group," posted online by Government Accountability Group provides details on how the World Bank sees its mission in 2013. The question relates to what the World Bank's mission should be in a world where develping countries such as China and India have made signficant progress. The fragile and conflict ridden states in Africa and in parts of Asia and Latin America will be critical parts of this mission. Yet a lot remains to be done in China and India, and the World Bank sees its role as facilitating the development of needed infrastructure in India and efforts to control pollution in China, better manage the growth of cities in both countries, and also work in the poorer parts of Europe such as Greece. World Bank president Kim sees the World Bank working with the private sector to ensure that infrastructure projects have "a transformational outcome" to help improve incomes of people struggling to join the middle class.

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Worl Bank lowers China's GDP growth rate for 2009 to 6.5% and inflation at just 0.5%. It sees problemaic deflation risk further ahead. It says it is not in CHina's interest to depreciate the yuan as it will not gain much in the way of exports by doing this. Chinese exports fell by 26% in February.

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The Guardian looks back at 2023 and covers the work of scientists from US, Germany and Brazil showing the damage. NASA scientist James Hansen tells The Guardian that with the current stage of politics and inaction on climate change young people in the world need to take over. Scientists at the Japan Meteorological Agency measured temperatures at 0.53 degrees centigrade higher than the global average 1990 -2021. This was higher than the previous high reached in 2016 of 0.35 degrees centigrade. Over the long term the world is considered to be 1.2 degrees hotter than preindustrial times, by experts. Included is the report "Hothouse Earth" by the Potsdam Institute of Climate research and other experts on the speed of the global warming.

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A survey of 11,000 Japanese companies shows remote work continuing to be supported by about 38% of companies, an almost equal number of 39% support workers going back to the office. In the US major cities downtowns have high vacancies for office space with a strong tendency of some companies to keep practice of remote work or only 2-3 days in office from the pandemic period. About 23% of companies say they are undecided.

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NYT provides this conversation with a botanist and biochemist with a spiritual passion for trees. She reveals the many ways in which trees support the human health and souls, says NYT. She has a vast scientific knowledge of it and a spiritual connection with forests. She talks about why we should preserve old forests and plant more in this conversation.