Microsoft Corporation's products were locked out of the recent World Social Forum (WSF) held in Nairobi, Kenya.With over 300 computers provided for participants and the press, organisers of the WSF preferred to provide open source software products and blocked all Microsoft related products at the forum. Participants attending the WSF, which for the first time took place in Africa, said this was done as a way of promoting the free social movement and at the same time also as a way of fighting Microsoft's "imperialistic tendencies". In its sixth year, the WSF runs parallel to the World Economic forum and represents alternative social and political views to those dominating the Davos conference. Anoop Sukumaran of Focus o­n the Global South said that since o­ne has to pay licences for Microsoft's software, the multinational computer technology corporation was, in a way, controlling the flow of global information.

A conference o­n �National Policy for Home-based Workers� was held at Ashoka Hotel in the Indian capital of New Delhi o­n January 18-20. A total of 47 participants from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal attended the conference. From Bangladesh, home-based worker leader Dilruba Anguri, Joint Secretary ABM Abdus Sattar and other home-based workers in the country participated in the workshop. Decisions taken in the workshop are including the rights and concerns of home-based workers mentioned in the Strategic Action Plan as priority issues in the upcoming SAARC Summit in April 2007, for mulating national policies for home-based workers, increasing trade opportunities for home-based workers by exclusive retail platforms and trade promotion initiatives, ratifying ILO Convention 177, supporting Development of the SAARC Gender Database to include data o­n Home-Based Workers and recognizing HomeNet South Asia as a representational body of home-based workers.