During Games, UN body to launch campaign against trafficking

October 3rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - How do you give your child a new toy or game to play with everyday for the next three years and not burn a hole in your pocket? The answer lies in a toy library. One such, Kids Gurukul, was launched in the capital Saturday where you can simply choose from hundreds of games and video games for your child and rent them.

September 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The central government in close coordination with states has intensified measures against human trafficking and crime against women, Minister of State for Home Ajay Maken said Saturday. The home ministry along with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), would be organising a workshop for training of trainers of all stakeholders against human trafficking by the end of this year, he said in a statement.

September 14th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Indian Railways will launch a special train to promote the Commonwealth Games 2010, Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee said here Monday. The ministry of railways will join hands with the ministries of communication and IT and youth affairs and sports to launch the train, which will travel across the country to "glorify" the Games and promote sportsmanship among the youth, Banerjee told reporters.

August 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Natural disasters like the 2008 floods in India leave children vulnerable to trafficking and many girls end up being "sold as brides", says a new report by a global child rights group. "Post-disaster, human trafficking has become common in the region (South Asia) as increasing manmade conflicts and natural disasters leave the already poor even more vulnerable," says the study by global child rights group ECPAT International, supported by the Body Shop International.

August 7th, 2009 LONDON — A pregnant Briton sentenced to life imprisonment in Laos for trafficking heroin has arrived back in Britain to serve the remainder of her sentence. Twenty-year-old Samantha Orobator was met by a prison van as she got off the flight from Laos at London's Heathrow Airport on Friday morning.

July 31st, 2009 PATNA - The Bihar government Friday admitted that there has been a marked increase in the number of women and children being smuggled from the state since the launch of its Human Trafficking Prevention Programme in 2007. Bihar Water Resources Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav told IANS that over 50 cases of human trafficking had been registered till July this year.

July 28th, 2009 BEIJING - China's culture ministry has issued an order to all websites prohibiting them to run, publish or offer links to online games featuring mafia-like gangs, and threatened "severe punishment" for those who violate the ban. Such games violated regulations on Internet administration, because they "advocate obscenity, gambling, or violence", and "undermine morality and Chinese traditional culture", said a circular posted on the ministry's website.

June 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Saying that New Delhi is not doing enough to curb human smuggling, the US has placed India on Tier 2 watch list of countries in a report on global trafficking released by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation," said the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report released by Clinton Tuesday.

June 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The US has placed India on tier 2 watch list of countries in a report on human trafficking, saying New Delhi is not doing enough to address the issue. "India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation," said the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report released by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday.

June 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Organising committee of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2010 launched a green games initiative on 'World Environment Day' here on Friday. To commemorate the participation of 71 participating nations, 71 jasmine saplings were planted in the "Commonwealth Garden of 71" which is created in Ashok Hotel.

May 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Sex tourism and human trafficking have emerged as alarming trends in recent years, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Ashwini Kumar said here Monday. Kumar was speaking at a seminar on Organised Crime and Human Trafficking at Vigyan Bhawan here.

March 27th, 2009 NEW DELHI - If the Congress' controversial Jai ho campaign was not enough to the steal the show on the campaign trail, the party is soon going to launch Jai Ho 2. Bollywood's singing sensation Sukhwinder Singh will be singing for Jai Ho 2 for the Congress and has also done the lyrics of the high profile campaign according to the Amitava Mitra , Director of the Jai Ho campaign at Percept Holding.

March 17th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Congress President Sonia Gandhi is likely to launch the party campaign for the Lok Sabha elections from Davangere in Karnataka March 23, party sources said Monday. Launching the election campaign from Karnataka is a strategic decision for the party as the state was once considered its stronghold but was lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2008.

February 8th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will Tuesday launch its Lok Sabha campaign from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh where its vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi will be the candidate. Naqvi said Rampur had been chosen because it had a large number of Muslims and 'starting the election campaign from there would dilute the notion that the BJP is anti-Muslim'.

January 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - 'Think, plan and act' is the mantra of Funskool's new range of strategic games that have been conceptualized by the IIT-Mumbai students and promise to improve your logical abilities. Industrial Design Centre (IDC) of IIT-Bombay has designed these games and Chennai-based toy and game manufacturer Funskool is producing and marketing them.