India has welcomed the preliminary ruling of the dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against the United States government on its cotton subsidies. Joint secretary in the Union Textiles Ministry K.K. Jalan said, "we have been demanding phasing out of the subsidy regime. So, this decision is in line with our policy approach that subsidies in the farm sector should be eliminated." The ruling came in response to a petition filed by Brazil, contending that subsidies paid to US farmers violate international norms. The Brazilians accused the US of breaking trade rules that limit to $1.6 billion the amount of subsidies it can pay American cotton growers every year. The petition was supported by Argentina, Australia, Benin, Canada, Chad, China, the European Community, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Taiwan and Venezuela.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, April 28, 2004

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India and the United Kingdom are keen to promote mutual understanding of their strategic and security interests and enhance relations between the defence industries of the two countries. These vital issues are expected to dominate the agenda of the two-day meeting of the Indo-UK Defence Consultative Group, which began here on Tuesday, a Defence Ministry spokesman said. The two countries were also stressing the need for developing the potential for collaborative defence equipment and research projects with a view to draw maximum benefit from the respective technological and industrial capabilities, the spokesman said. The Indo-UK Defence Consultative Group was constituted in March 1995 and the meeting is held every alternative year in India and UK and the ongoing conference is the eighth, he said.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, April 28, 2004

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India will host the crucial expert-level talks on nuclear confidence building measures with Pakistan on May 25 and 26, which will look at building on the measures agreed between the two countries during the 1999 Lahore Summit. It is learnt that the delegation for the talks will be headed by Additional Secretary (International Organisations) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sheel Kant Sharma, who will hold discussions with his Pakistani counterpart. The Pakistani delegation is expected to arrive here on May 24. It must be noted that the two countries had agreed to certain CBMs on February 21, 1999 during the Lahore Summit. The measures had been outlined in the MoU signed between K. Raghunath and Shamshad Ahmed, then respective foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan. These measures will provide a broad basis for the expert-level delegations to proceed further on the matter. Both countries had agreed to work out an agreement on notifying each other in advance on ballistic missile flight tests. While both alert each other on long-range ballistic missile tests, a formal agreement is yet to be signed.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, April 28, 2004

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Gas Authority of India Ltd (Gail) has tied up with Sunitomo Chemical of Japan to manufacture insecticide-treated Olyset brand mosquito bed nets in India. Sumitomo is considered to be a world leader in developing and manufacture of insecticide-treated bed nets. Its Olyset brand nets have a life of 5-7 years and remain effective even after washing for more than 30 times. The local manufacturing of Olynet by Gail will help in its easy availability and will work as a personal protection tool in mosquito control programme. It will also ensure appropriate quality and availability through social marketing programmes of government and corporate houses.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, April 27, 2004

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Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy said here on Monday the IAF has focussed its efforts towards operationalisation of newly inducted assets, including weapon systems and related equipment. Inaugurating the bi-annual five-day conference of the IAF commanders, the Air Chief said besides operationalisation and induction of the sophisticated fighting systems the authorities were laying great stress on professionalism to meet the emerging challenges and security scenario. The five-day conclave of the top commanders were scheduled to discuss operational challenges before the IAF, flight safety and maintenance and personnel related matters, an IAF spokesman said here on Monday.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, April 27, 2004

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The Pakistani business community's attitude towards India has been changing following a thaw in the relations between the two countries opening up a range of business opportunities. Ever since Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee met in Islamabad in January this year on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, the once hostile attitude of businessmen towards India has been mellowing. "The business community is really keen to visit India and we are daily receiving over 200 visa applications," says Adnan, a counter boy at Gerry's. Gerry's, an international courier company, has for long been collecting visa applications for US and UK missions in Pakistan. The company sends all the applications to the High Commission and applicants can get back their passports and other documents from the Gerry's office. "There is so much business activity going on between India and Pakistan that it has almost become impossible for us to maintain the records," Waqar Sheikh, a programme coordinator at SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told IANS. The two governments are yet to take a decision on opening land and train route for goods transportation between these two countries.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, April 24, 2004

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From print to television, from Net forums to radio, the world media started buzzing even before the Indians began hitting the buttons of their electronic voting machines or EVMs on Tuesday. The world's largest democracy went to polls starting off a three-week-long general election. Indian elections, a headline grabber at any given time by the sheer size of operations, this time is in extreme focus because of the use of the electronic voting machines in counting and collecting votes. Actually, this will be the first all-electronic Indian election, with some 725,000 electronic voting machines being used in every voting station in the country. Not even the US has dared to do it in this scale. "While the US debates the merits of e-voting, India decided to have all electronic polls in the next elections for its billion strong population. Also, taking note from India's experience, other commonwealth countries like Malaysia and Britain will be sending representatives to India to see the use of EVMs during the Assembly elections. In fact, one of the growing ideas seems to be that the US could do well to emulate India's feat and carry out an all-electronic voting procedure this year to avoid procedural glitches like last time.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 21, 2004

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By having regular consultations, the Group of 20 developing countries is trying hard to resist efforts to break the coalition. Official sources here, however, insist that the leading G-20 countries such as India, South Africa, Brazil and China are acutely conscious of the efforts by the E.U. and the U.S to break the coalition. The G-20 has been a thorn in the flesh of the E.U. and the U.S. ever since it was formed last year in the run-up to the Cancun ministerial conference of the WTO. The group was constituted by developing countries as a reaction to the proposals submitted by the E.U. and the U.S. on reduction of their enormous agricultural subsidies. Though the E.U. has publicly been saying that the concerns of developing countries will have to be taken more seriously after the Cancun meeting, their actual offers as part of the agriculture talks are not expected to go very far.

Courtesy: The Hindu, April 18, 2004

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A blueprint to boost trade between India and Myanmar was prepared during the first meeting of the Indo-Myanmar joint task force formed by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). The meeting, held in Kolkata, called for greater interaction at three levels - government-to-government, business-to-business and people-to-people - to improve trade ties between India, especially the north-eastern states of the country, and it's second largest neighbour. It was decided to form a platform for various CEOs of the two countries to come together and identify areas of greater cooperation. The meeting also stressed need to remove the bottlenecks to increase the Indian export to Myanmar, which now stands at a "negligible Rs 360 crore". According to the CII, the shared common interest in Buddhist culture can foster the tourist inflow from India to Myanmar. It was also proposed that the Myanmar government set up an export processing zone near the border. This zone could be used to make products at competitive prices.

Courtesy: The Statesman, April 07, 2004

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The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEP), the U.K. Government and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) have decided to become facilitators to fulfil the ambitious plan of having 10 per cent share in the total installed power capacity by 2012 in India. The REEP is a global partnership of governments, business, finance and other organizations and are committed to working together to deliver policy, regulatory and financing frameworks. Responding to the Assocham Alternate President, Anil Agarwal's suggestion for partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Kate White, Head of Climate Change, said, the U.K. was already committed to reduce the same to 12.5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The U.K. was putting itself on a path towards reducing carbon-di-oxide emissions of nearly 60 per cent from the current levels by 2050.

Courtesy: The Hindu, April 04, 2004