Mar. 31 – India became the country with the least ability to access information communication technologies (ICTs) among the BRIC nations, according to the Digital Inclusion Index recently released by the risk analysis company, Maplecroft.

Assessing the digital inclusion levels across 186 countries in the world, the index combined 10 indicators – including rates of mobile phones and broadband subscriptions, fixed telephone lines, households with a personal computers (PCs) and televisions, internet users and secure internet servers, internet bandwidth, secondary education enrollment and adult literacy – to achieve the final outcome. Continue reading →

Mar. 30 – Investment in clean energy rose sharply across Asia in the past year, increasing by 33 percent to US$82.8 billion in 2010. In 2009, clean-tech investment in the Asian region surpassed that in the Americas for the first time.

In 2005, China attracted less than US$3 billion in private investment for clean energy. Four short years later, in 2009, it led the world with US$39.1 billion in private investment. Last year, private investment grew a further 39 percent to US$54.4 billion – well-above the region’s growth rate. Private investment in clean energy in China in 2010 equals that of the entire world in 2005. Continue reading →

Mar. 29 – China is now ranked second, behind only the United States, among the world’s largest generators of articles included in scientific publications, according to the Royal Society in London.

While developed nations round out the top 10, their share of published research papers is falling, while the number of papers that China, Brazil and India publish is steadily on the rise, the society reported. Continue reading →