With India-China having jointly petitioned WTO, it is expected that both will reach at a permanent solution to address anomalies surrounding food procurement In a joint paper submitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) committee on agriculture on July 17, India and China lambasted the developed countries, including the United States, the European Union and Canada for consistently giving trade-distorting subsidies to their farmers at levels much higher than the ceiling applicable to developing countries with respect to such subsidies. According to the paper, “Developed countries corner more than 90 per cent of global Aggregate Measurement of Support (AMS) — a technical jargon for trade-distorting subsidies — entitlements amounting to nearly $160 billion, which is beyond their de minimis (maximum permissible level of AMS)....
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Privatization is the way forward for AI
‘Branded generics’, where patients are fleeced
The 2017 Trade Policy Agenda unveiled by the Trump administration on March 2, 2017 pushed for a stricter regime for intellectual property rights (IPRs) and patents. While agreeing that India’s reforms on IPR are encouraging, it said “India’s new National Intellectual Property Rights Policy [NIPRP] should protect US innovations”. India’s defence is based primarily on the flexibilities available to the developing countries under WTO agreement on Trips [trade-related intellectual property rights] to ensure availability of drugs to patients [majority of them are poor] at ‘affordable’ prices. If the concern for the poor is so overwhelming, then the government must ensure that on ground zero, patients should get medicines at prices they can afford. Are they really getting? The manufacturers of...
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APATHETIC ATTITUDE RUINING BUSINESS
The fertiliser industry, in India is slumping due to the burden on investors to sell at low price and delayed payment of subsidy dues by the Government Last year, Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) sold its urea business viz plant in Babrala, Uttar Pradesh to Yara Fertilisers India Private Limited [YFIL] — Indian arm of Norway’s Yara lnternational ASA — for a sum of Rs 2,670 crore. This was a distress sale. Then, it had also alluded to selling its complex fertiliser business (including Haldia unit). Now, the TCL are in advanced negotiations with India-born Indonesian billionaire Prakash Lohia of Indorama Corporation to sell Haldia unit — on a slump sale basis for Rs 600-800 crore. The sale will include the plant and other fixed assets and...
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TELECOM INDUSTRY IN SELF-DESTRUCT MODE
A good deal of the problems that the telecom sector faces today has been solely created by service providers. They must keep it in mind that public interest cannot be won by just keeping price low. It’s important to maintain quality of service Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson of the State Bank of India, recently sounded alarm bells over troubles surrounding the telecom sector. She wrote to the Government about the “highly unsustainable levels” of debt mobile companies face today. The industry’s debt to the banking sector is estimated at four lakh crore rupees. In a letter to the telecom secretary, Aruna Sundararajan, Bhattacharya stated that “stress in the sector has reached highly unsustainable levels after the entry of new players and launch...
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Exporters’ trail of woes continues under GST
Some relief is offered via input credit. But a seamless tax credit chain is inevitable in a regime of taxes coming under different jurisdictions On the midnight of June 30, 2017, the government flagged off the most revolutionary economic reform, viz. the Goods and Services Tax (GST), ever undertaken post-independence. Even as expectations run high, the GST Council is having a tough time dealing with a plethora of exemptions particularly in the export sector — a baggage that got deeply entrenched under the existing system of taxation. Under the extant system, the Indian industry had to pay multiple taxes such as Excise Duty, Countervailing Duty (CVD), Special Additional Duty (SAD), Central Sales Tax (CST), Value Added Tax (VAT), and a...
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Too early to look for jobs
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Loan waivers and written-offs given to corporates or farmers are totally unacceptable. They impact viability of banks and erode their capital base In the last session of the Parliament, members of the Opposition alleged that, while the Government had no qualms in waiving loans worth hundreds of thousand crore rupees given to industrialists and corporates, it showed little inclination to extend the same relief to farmers who are unable to pay back loans for no fault of theirs. The treasury benches responded by saying loans given to corporates are not waived; instead, they are written-off. To a layman, write-off and waiver would appear to convey the same meaning — in both, lender decides not to recover unpaid loans from borrower....
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Self-sufficiency in fertilisers or building castles in air?
Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar has announced the government’s decision to revive five closed plants of Fertiliser Corporation of India (FCIL) and Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation Limited (HFCL). They are: Talcher (Odisha), Ramagundum (Telangana), Sindri (Jharkhand), Barauni (Bihar) and Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh). To be commissioned by 2020-21, their revival is expected to add 7.5 million tonnes (mt) of urea capacity. The minister has also exuded confidence that the decision for mandatory neem coating of urea (2015) will result in 10% improvement in the efficiency of fertiliser use. Taking urea consumption of about 33 mt annually, this will save about 3.3 mt. He also referred to steps for increasing utilisation of the existing capacity. This has led to increase...
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Why irresponsible registration of pesticide companies must be reined in
The Parliamentary standing committee on agriculture in its 2015-16 report—Impact of chemical fertilisers and pesticides on agriculture and allied sectors in the country—has expressed serious concern over unscientific, excessive use of pesticides. The Parliamentary standing committee on agriculture in its 2015-16 report—Impact of chemical fertilisers and pesticides on agriculture and allied sectors in the country—has expressed serious concern over unscientific, excessive use of pesticides. It laments that associated problems have not been properly addressed by central and state governments. Even as the committee exhorts the Centre for ‘a comprehensive action plan for ensuring environment sustainable manufacturing, import, sale and use of pesticides’, review of the Insecticides Act (IA),1968 and setting up of Pesticides Development and Regulation Authority (PDRA), it has...
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