The HINDU Notes – 11th November 2017

📰 India, Canada may ‘trade off’ wish lists

Upcoming trade talks will see both sides discussing issues such as high pulses tariff, travel curbs

•India and Canada will next week discuss ways to take forward talks on the proposed bilateral trade and investment pacts. Also on the agenda will be measures to remove irritants, including those affecting trade in goods, especially ‘high’ tariffs on farm items such as pulses, and services, particularly ‘curbs’ relating to easier movement of skilled workers.

•In the talks related to the proposed Canada-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA), officially known as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, both sides are expected to exchange their respective services trade wish list, indicating the areas where they would like to gain from the trade pact, said official sources.

•One main area of interest for India is ensuring easier movement of Indian skilled workers to Canada for short-term work.

•The last round of FTA negotiations saw modalities on goods trade taking shape.

•Both countries are learnt to be getting closer to finalising the proposed bilateral Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA).

•India and Canada had said in June 2007 that they concluded the FIPPA talks. However, the agreement has not yet been ratified and made operational.

•India is learnt to have had reservations regarding the inclusion of provisions on the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism in the FIPPA.

•The ISDS, among other things, enables investors to sue governments before international tribunals and seek huge compensation for the economic harms they suffer due to reasons including policy changes.

•Since December 2015, India has been negotiating its investment pacts on the basis of its new Model Bilateral Investment Treaty Text.

Customs duty increase

•On trade in goods, one issue that is likely to top the agenda would be India’s recent decision to increase the rate of basic customs duty on peas to 50% from nil duty — a move that has “upset” Canada which is a major pulses exporter, including to India. However, officials in the Indian government said the duty increase was compliant with the World Trade Organisation norms, adding that the move was taken due to the bumper harvest of pulses in India.

•On trade in services, India will push for easing norms in Canada (Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program) to help Indian skilled workers, especially professionals from the Information Technology field, to take up short-term project work.

•Meanwhile, three Canadian Ministers — Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development; François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of International Trade; and Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport – will lead a trade mission to India from November 13 to 17, accompanied by a delegation of nearly 200 Canadian business representatives, according to a statement by the High Commission of Canada in India.

•The Ministers will participate in the Canada-India Technology Summit, where there will be several significant business and innovation announcements involving top-tier Canadian companies, the statement added.

•The High Commissioner for Canada to India, Nadir Patel, said in a statement: “Canada-India bilateral relations are growing at a fast pace and India is a priority country for Canada. Canadian investment into India has increased by nearly $15 billion over the past three years, and the number of Canadian companies active in India stands at over 1000. The timing of this visit by three senior Canadian Ministers couldn’t be better to further advance our business relationship and deepen Canada’s engagement across India.”

📰 India to face U.K. in International Court of Justice judges election

With Kulbhushan trial now in international court, India wants to see Bhandari in

•The government is putting “all efforts in” to ensure the election of its nominee Judge Dalveer Bhandari for the International Court of Justice, after receiving a setback at the United Nations on Thursday.

•Officials said on Friday that India failed to secure enough support in the first few rounds of voting for the court where the Kulbhushan Jadhav case is being heard.

•The next round of voting will be on Monday, when Mr. Bhandari will face off with the United Kingdom candidate Christopher Greenwood, who also lost in the vote, in what is being described as a close contest. While India finished far ahead in the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, Britain got more votes in the United Nations Security Council.

•The judges who won were from France, Somalia, Brazil and Lebanon, which was India’s rival in the Asia bloc.

•If the next round of voting proves inconclusive, the U.N. would hold a “joint conference” made up of members from both the Assembly and the Council, after which the elected judges may be asked to decide.

Handsome lead

•“In the Security Council, the permanent members (U.K., U.S., France, China and Russia) have disproportionate influence. So that is an issue. But in the General Assembly, we have a handsome lead,” a senior MEA official told The Hindu on Friday. Another official said the government, including MEA officials in Delhi and at the U.N. in New York, will be working the phones “over the weekend” to bring more members of the U.N. Security Council around.

•To be elected, any candidate must obtain a majority of 97 votes or more in the UN general assembly and also a majority of eight votes in the Security Council. During the last unsuccessful round on Friday, India won 115 to U.K.’s 74 votes in the UNGA, but won only six out of 15 U.N. Security Council members, while U.K. won 9. India’s task is made more difficult, given the U.K. is a permanent member and has a vote in both the UNSC and the UNGA.

•As a result, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had himself taken up the issue of support with countries that he has held bilateral meetings with since June this year, when India declared its nomination bid.

PM’s intervention

•When asked if PM Modi would himself make calls in the next few days, an official said “all efforts will be put in”. “It depends on how many of the U.N. Security Council members we manage to [bring] over to our side over the weekend,” the official added.

•India has a particular interest in the ICJ spot, given the trial of Kulbhushan Jadhav, the man convicted of spying in Pakistan, which is now in the international court at The Hague.

•In October, Pakistan nominated an ad-hoc judge Tassaduq Hussain Jillani according to ICJ rules to sit on the bench.

📰 Rohingya's hope floats on a boat

Rohingya desperate to flee persecution continue to gather on Myanmar’s beaches to await their saviour – a boatman from Bangladesh who will ferry them to safety, for a price. The Hindu reports on the strange alchemy of commerce and compassion

•“Last month was terrible,” says Rafiuddin Majhi, looking into the distance at the Arakan range across the border in his homeland that is no longer his country. As a teenager, he was forced to abandon his village in Myanmar. That was a quarter century ago, when he entered Bangladesh as part of the big Rohingya exodus of 1991-92. Now he makes a living off another exodus, triggered by a junta far more brutal, calling for a journey far more perilous. For the desperate souls amassed on the beaches of Myanmar, he is Charon, the proverbial boatman of Hades, vested with the power to ferry them out of hell, and return them back to life.

•The river where the Majhi (Bangla for boatman) plies his trade is the Naf. It flows along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border until it meets the Bay of Bengal. For the Rohingya, it is the Styx that separates the world of the living from the realm of the dead. “On this trip to Myanmar, about half an hour after I reached the Naik-Kon Dia beach, I saw a helicopter approaching us,” Rafiuddin says. “There were about 2,000 people on the beach huddled together, like a ball of ants. Maybe they thought they were going to be bombed, I don’t know. Then the helicopter disappeared. Shortly afterwards, 30 men in uniform emerged from the forests.”

•Rafiuddin speaks haltingly, with long pauses, giving his sister time to translate. “The soldiers isolated from the crowd five men with long beards. They marched them into the forest, about 100 yards from where we were. Then they beheaded the five men with machetes, one by one, in front of us, in front of the men’s families. The big crowd watched it quietly.” Though a Rohingya himself, Rafiuddin doesn’t betray much emotion: “I got down on my knees and prayed, but without covering my face, without moving my head or hands, as I didn’t want to attract attention. I closed my eyes and prayed for their quick and painless death.”

•The bodies were dumped in the marshes. Fortunately, Rafiuddin was not targeted. “They saw me with a Bangladeshi boat and let me live,” he says. Once the soldiers left, the terrified multitude came alive. “Hundreds of women and children wanted to get on my boat at the same time. But I could accommodate only around 20. Who I can take on board and who I must leave behind is a complicated matter.”

•Rafiuddin stops to take a phone call. After a tense conversation, in which the word ‘police’ comes up twice, he turns to me: “I am being hunted by the [Bangladeshi] police. I am counting on you to talk to them.”

The complicated matter

•According to Human Rights Watch, in Myanmar’s Rakhine province, in the three coastal areas of Maungdaw, Rathedaung and Buthidaung, 288 Rohingya villages were destroyed by the Myanmar army between August 25 and September 25 this year. As of October 11, the Bangladesh government’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC) is estimated to have accommodated 536,000 Rohingya refugees, of which more than 50% were children. Men like Rafiuddin play a critical role in their safe arrival in Bangladesh. Based in and around Shahpori island, the final sliver of Bangladeshi territory where the Naf merges with the Bay of Bengal, they ferry the Rohingya 3 km up the Naf river from Myanmar into Bangladesh.

•I first meet Rafiuddin outside my hotel in Cox’s Bazar, on the road to Teknaf, a tiny coastal town on the Bangladeshi side. He looks ragged in a dirty, sleeveless vest, and his unruly stubble suggests he hasn’t shaved in weeks. “Let’s start,” he says, within minutes of our meeting.

•He leads me up a steep road that leads into the forest behind my hotel. As we walk, he tells me a little about himself. He had come to Bangladesh from a village called Pirindaung in Rathedaung, near the sea. “We were not attacked, unlike the people who are crossing over now,” he says. “Our problems were different. We had to take permission from the state for everything — for marriage, for moving to another village, for fishing, for buying a goat or a cow. Even for the land, we needed permission from the local authority. Fed up, my father decided to leave.”

•Since 1978, there have been five major exoduses of Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh. The most recent one that began on August 25 is the biggest.

•We reach the banks of the Naf in 20 minutes. The Arakans rise up on the other side of the river. Rafiuddin picks up the refugees from three of the half a dozen beaches where the Naf meets the sea. During August-September, he took his boat into Myanmar seven times, ferrying refugees back to Shahpori Island. But he cannot do that any more — at least not without risking imprisonment. “I have been charged with human trafficking,” he explains.

•The Deputy Commissioner of Cox’s Bazar district, Md. Ali Hossain, says that they had to “discourage entry by boat” in view of the risks involved. Between August 29 and October 16, 26 boats capsized in the Naf river and the Bay of Bengal, costing 183 lives. Of them, 182 were Rohingya, half of them children. This is one of the reasons why in early October, the local administration banned “any entry by boat”. The land border, however, remains “completely open”, Hossain says.

•But the land border is both more difficult to access and more risky. The internally displaced Rohingya prefer to flee by boat, as eastern Rakhine is much closer to riverine crossing points. On the other hand, to reach any of the half a dozen crossover points on land, they would have to walk for about two weeks through a mountainous terrain manned by the trigger-happy Myanmar military.

•Back in Rafiuddin’s two-room house made of mud and bamboo, two young girls watch us silently as we settle down. One of them hands me a cup of black tea and sits down between Rafiuddin and me. “I will be your translator,” she says. She is Rafiuddin’s youngest sister and was born in Bangladesh.

•Rafiuddin tells me that he began life as a refugee by working as a boatman’s assistant, repairing and maintaining fishing boats. He graduated to Majhi (or the boat’s captain) a few years ago. In the last five years, especially after the 2012 pogrom against the Rohingya, he has ferried hundreds of Rohingya from Rakhine to Teknaf. “Initially it wasn’t that difficult to get them from Myanmar to Bangladesh. We often brought people without taking money, when we were informed that they were stranded on one of the beaches,” he says. As fishermen, it was also easier for men like Rafiuddin to navigate the river and the sea.

•But things changed. Rafiuddin says that unlike in 2012 or even 2016, he no longer has any say in the refugees who get to board his boat. It’s all decided by a complicated money transfer process.

•“I received only a third of my share for every passenger above 10 years, which is somewhere between 2,000 to 10,000 Bangladeshi Taka (₹1,500-₹7,800),” he says. Rafiuddin also claims to have accommodated women and children “without charging a Taka.”

•“In August, we were making 2,000-3,000 Taka per passenger as there weren’t any restrictions. But now with the ban, we are charging 7,000-10,000 Taka for each adult,” he says. “But often, after landing in Myanmar, we find many children and older women. We do not charge them anything, and that is how the crowd in the boat swells.” Typically, the boat’s owner (known as the ‘Company’) gets 50% of the revenue, while the remaining 50% is split between the Majhi and his helpers, with the motorman and the assistant together receiving 50% of what the Majhi gets.

•According to the United Nations, more than 800,000 refugees have arrived in Teknaf sub-district and Cox’s Bazar district since 1978. Many of the refugees, including Rafiuddin, regularly receive videos on their cell phones depicting the gruesome violence unfolding in the Rohingya villages in Myanmar. Rafiuddin starts showing me some pictures and videos. One shows a girl’s body, clad in a red blouse and orange skirt, lying on a blue and white sheet. “I saw this girl in Dong Khali in north Maungdaw,” says Rafiuddin. “She was desperate to climb on to my boat. But I had already left the shore. It was raining heavily and I soon lost sight of her.”

•I tell Rafiuddin that I want to see first-hand what the Myanmar military is up to and ask him if he could smuggle me into Rakhine State at night. He looks at me as if I had said something outrageous. “I won’t do it even if you pay a lakh,” he says firmly. “It is suicidal.”

At the refugee camp

•One morning, my area guide Shafique and I head north to Cox’s Bazar. This region, on either side of the Naf, has massive natural gas reserves. Many have linked the internal displacement of Rohingya to the discovery of gas, as the villages of the Rohingya Muslims sit atop a large chunk of the reserves in Myanmar.

•Global experts such as Azeem Ibrahim, a senior fellow with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, see a connection between “the (Rohingya) genocide” and the “discovery of large offshore gas and oil supplies” which has drawn the attention of “leading companies… from China, India, Australia and South Korea”, with some of them obtaining “exploration licenses from the State-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise.”

•The effects of the “genocide” are visible as we approach Unchiprang, a temporary refugee settlement between Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar. Half-naked children in tattered clothes and women in burqas without a face cover stand by the roadside. It seems as if each family has been allotted a tree to stand under.

•The children come running towards our autorickshaw, whose windows are fortified with iron netting to keep the alms-seekers away from the passengers. At Unchiprang, the scene is so gloomy that Shafique, a regular visitor to these camps, calls up his home to find out if his children are alright.

•The camp is a temporary shelter, set up in a forest area. A thousand trees were felled to make way for 8 by 10 ft tents made of plastic sheets. The shelters are on either side of the road in ankle-deep mud. The stench of human faeces is overpowering. Clean water and hygienic food are in severe short supply. Despite the best efforts of aid agencies and the RRRC, filth floats on stagnant pools around the makeshift shanties. We decide to spend the night somewhere in the refugee camp.

•“But Sadaullah wants to meet now,” says Shafique. Sadaullah has used the boatman’s services as a paying client, to transport his sister and her four children from Myanmar. He is expected to throw some light on the monetary aspect of the process that eases the passage for the Rohingya. We head to Teknaf town and meet him at a cheap restaurant where everyone is busy with lentil soup and white bread. Sadaullah looks a little like Amitabh Bachchan of the 1970s. Introducing himself as a “part-time doctor,” he begins by dispelling any notions one might have of this being “human trafficking”.

•“The humanitarian agencies, the government, the police and the press will call it human trafficking. But my mother collapsed in shock when my sister called up to say that they were in Go Zon Dia beach in Myanmar, and had exhausted their stocks of food and water. I had no option but to smuggle them in via the river route,” he says.

•Sadaullah had to locate a Company willing to place a boat on water, especially during a fishing ban, and then negotiate for a rate he could afford. He finally settled on a verbal contract to pay 42,000 Bangladeshi Taka for 12 persons. “But I did not have the money. So I told a relative in Saudi Arabia to fund the trip. He agreed.” The money did not arrive on time. Sadauallah was asked to stay put at the ‘Company’s office’ on that fateful night of October 10.

•“Meanwhile, the boatman arrived at Go Zon Dia beach. But before letting my sister and the kids board the boat, he called the Company to ask if the money had been transferred to his account. It hadn’t. He threatened to leave with others who could pay on the spot as it was getting dark and the Myanmar military was around,” recalls Sadaullah. Desperate, Sadaullah called many for help.

•Finally his wife managed to arrange the funds. “I still don’t know how she did it,” says Sadaullah. “The money was transferred through bKash, a popular digital money transfer service. Only after the Company and the boatman were satisfied that the funds had been transferred were my sister and her kids allowed on board.” A few hours later, when Sadaullah met his sister at Shahpori Island, 25 years after they parted, she fainted. “She never thought she would reach Bangladesh by crossing a rough river by the sea,” he says.

Private humanitarian networks

•Sadaullah explains that he basically tapped into a well established “private humanitarian network” with people in Europe and West Asia, which clandestinely arrange for money to fund the transfer, mainly of women and children, from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

•The network has a handful of volunteers who pay the Company and arrange the boats. The money bypasses the established banking networks and uses the route of Hundi or alternative remittance. The volunteers are paid the money in Bangladesh on the basis of instructions issued by the person who is funding the boat trip from outside Bangladesh. Senior police officials said that they were aware of such “engagements” but could not do much about it.

•“I won’t call it money laundering or trafficking. It is a humanitarian effort by conscientious people at a time when the whole world has failed the Rohingya,” says Sadauallah. He, however, does not deny the risk involved in a boat ferrying three times its capacity of passengers.

•Sadaullah’s concerns were evident on a trip from Gholapara in Shahpori Island to a large Madrassah, the Jameya Ahmadia Baharul Uloom. In a circular patch of land east of the madrassa lies the largest burial ground in Shahpori.

•As we reach, students of the seminary are lowering a body into the earth. One of the teachers at the madrassa, Master Jasimuddin, shows us a photograph on his phone: the body of a young man, probably in his mid-20s. According to Jasimuddin, the body was recovered from Naf river after a boat capsized on October 9. “He is the one we are burying now,” he says.

•“Another woman and five children died in the same accident. But their bodies had been recovered earlier,” says Md. Ibrahim, another teacher. A couple of British journalists want to know if there are similar photographs of children, preferably with the bodies “floating on water.” Ibrahim wasn’t sure.

•“The main problem is that there are no boats in Myanmar to bring the refugees. Any boat that brings the refugees to safety has to leave from Bangladesh. If the boats are disallowed, then the people stranded on the beach will die as the Myanmar military will not allow them to enter the mainland by crossing the Arakan range,” says Faisal Alam, a human rights activist.

•A day later, Rafiuddin calls me, his fourth call in five days. He is disappointed that I did not talk to the police. “I am on the run for rescuing people. No one is ready to help me and now you are also leaving,” he complains.

•For Rafiuddin, it is going to be a long and difficult winter. So long as there are cases of “trafficking” against him, he can neither visit the river for fishing, nor visit Myanmar to transport the stranded Rohingya. There are many like him on Shahpori Island.

📰 CJI Misra asserts himself in SC amidst corruption storm

Overrules Justice Chelameswar’s order on Bench formation

•Disapproving of a judicial order that had decided the composition of a Bench for hearing a corruption case, a five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, on Friday ruled that it is the prerogative of the Chief Justice to decide what matter is heard by which judge.

•The ruling effectively nullifies an order passed by a two-judge Bench a day earlier, directing that the case be posted before a Bench comprising the five senior-most judges on November 13.

•In his order, the CJI asserted his role as “the master of the roster” in order to protect the Supreme Court from “anarchy”, at the end of a raucous hearing marked by exchange of harsh words, heckling, accusations of browbeating judges and forum-shopping and repeated warnings of action for contempt of court.

•The matter concerns two petitions seeking a probe by a special investigation team (SIT) into allegations of corruption contained in a first information report registered by the CBI last September.

•The FIR alleged that a conspiracy was hatched by some persons, including a former Orissa High Court judge and a hawala dealer, to bribe Supreme Court judges hearing the case of a debarred private medical college. Chief Justice Misra was leading the Bench that had heard and decided the case of the medical college in question.

•The petitions, filed by advocate Kamini Jaiswal and NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms, said Chief Justice Misra should not be part of any proceedings, either administrative or judicial, in the case.

•A Bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar, which heard Ms. Jaiswal’s petition on Thursday, found the allegations in the FIR “disturbing” and ordered a Constitution Bench comprising the five senior-most judges to convene on November 13. It had ordered that material and evidence in the corruption case be sealed and produced before that Bench.

•In effect annulling this order, the Constitution Bench held that “there cannot be any kind of command directing the CJI to constitute a Bench” and that no judge can take up or post matters on his own. That authority is the Chief Justice’s exclusive domain. Senior advocates said the judicial institution would crumble if every judge acts like the Chief Justice of India.

📰 Jadhav will be permitted to meet his wife, says Pakistan

Islamabad cites humanitarian grounds for nod

•Pakistan on Friday offered to let Kulbhushan Jadhav, the former Indian naval officer convicted by a military court for alleged espionage, meet his wife on humanitarian grounds.

•“The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jhadev [sic] with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds. A Note Verbale has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, today,” a foreign office statement said.

•Pakistan has consistently denied India’s requests for consular access to Mr. Jhadav. Mr. Jadhav was arrested by Pakistani law enforcement agencies on March 3, 2016 after he allegedly crossed over from Iran. His video confession was released by Islamabad in which he stated that he was tasked by the RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilising and waging war against Pakistan. He was sentenced to death by a military court. The ruling has been upheld by the Army Chief. On India’s appeal, the International Court of Justice stayed the sentence in May this year.

📰 BSF raises concerns with Pak. Rangers in ‘sector commander’ meeting

Three-day meet concludes; both nations agree to resume meeting of sector commanders

•India and Pakistan on Friday decided to resume the meetings between “sector commanders” deployed along the International Border (IB).

•The quarterly meeting between officials of the rank of Deputy Inspector-General on the Wagah-Attari border had not taken place for the past year-and-a-half.

•At the 44th biannual meeting with the Pakistan Rangers that concluded on Friday, the Border Security Force (BSF) “strongly” raised the issue of unprovoked firing, killing of civilians and use of tunnels for cross-border crimes along the Pakistan border.

•The 19-member delegation of Rangers, led by Director-General (Sindh) Maj.Gen. Muhammad Saeed, arrived in India on November 8 for the three-day meet. The Indian side was led by its Director-General K.K Sharma.

Worry list

•“The Indian side firmly and strongly took up specific issues of concern including incidents of unprovoked cross-border firing, smuggling of narcotics, infiltration attempts, tunnelling and defence construction activities,” the BSF said in a statement.

•It underlined the discovery of a number of tunnels along the border in the Jammu region that are used by the other side to facilitate cross-border smuggling and infiltration, an official said.

•While the Pakistani delegation raised the issue of targeted firing by the BSF, it was made clear that such action is resorted to when unprovoked firing from the other side kills troops, civilians or leads to other damage. The BSF statement said the talks, in the presence of officials from the Home Ministry and anti-narcotics departments of the two countries, were held in a “constructive atmosphere” and the need for cooperation to maintain the sanctity of the borders was stressed upon.

•“The issue of inadvertent crossing over by the border population and ways to facilitate their return on both the sides was also discussed,” it said. The BSF said it was agreed between the two sides that “utmost caution and care should be exercised in dealing with the civilians.”

•The two sides also decided to ensure that the wild growth of the ‘Sarkanda’ (elephant grass) along the IB will be checked and it will be disposed of within the existing norms. “The talks ended with both sides agreeing on constant endeavour to maintain peaceful and tranquil borders,” the statement said.

Next meeting in Pakistan

•The next round of these talks is scheduled to be held in Pakistan.

•India’s 3,323-km border with Pakistan runs through four States — Jammu and Kashmir (1,225 km which includes 740 km of Line of Control), Rajasthan (1,037 km), Punjab (553 km) and Gujarat (508 km).

•While the BSF guards the IB independently, it works under the operational command of the Army while working at the LoC.

📰 ‘EAC has clear road map to create jobs’

PM’s economic advisory council also working on an economy tracking monitor

•The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council said on Friday that it had spelt out a ‘clear road map’ for the government to ramp up job creation and infrastructure financing avenues while investing more resources in health, education and skill development.

•While it did not reveal any details of the roadmap, the Council headed by NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy said in a statement that it had also begun work on designing a new tracking monitor for the economy that would link economic growth indicators with social indicators, as well as improving the country’s National Accounts.

•Taking the idea further, the Council also sought to set a similar tone for the Fifteenth Finance Commission which would recommend the formula for sharing taxes between the Centre and the States and the allocations that each State would receive, for the five-year period between 2020 and 2025.

•“It formulated far reaching recommendations to guide the evolving framework for the Fifteenth Finance Commission, including the incentivisation of States for achieving Health, Education and Social Inclusion outcomes,” the PMEAC said in the statement.

‘Evolving initiatives’

•The Council also did not share any assessment of the present state of the economy, but said it ‘took stock of the economic and social analysis done by the theme groups and evolving initiatives’ led by its different members.

•Key issues, strategies and recommended interventions in respect of these themes were discussed, the statement added.

•“Innovative steps for unlocking growth, exports and employment potential were also deliberated upon — including through transformation of India’s gold market,” the Council said.

•While it was set up in September and met on Friday for only the second time since its inception, the Council said its “unique feature is turning out to be its ability to link economic growth with social aspects, with greater last mile connectivity.”

•“Its value addition as an independent institutional mechanism for providing informed advice to the Prime Minister is increasingly being recognised, with focused time-bound recommendations to move from policy to practice, benefiting from consultation with a wide spectrum of experts and stakeholders,” the Council said.

•The Council’s chairman stressed on the need for according high priority to infrastructure financing and made a presentation on the issue with a focus on developing new mechanisms for a risk coverage umbrella, the statement said.

•Another NITI Aayog Member Vinod K Paul is said to have highlighted strategies for achieving ‘Swastha Bharat’ by 2022 at the meeting attended by other Council members Surjit Bhalla, Rathin Roy, Ashima Goyal and Shamika Ravi and Ratan P. Watal. Mr Watal, who is a former finance secretary, made a presentation to ‘demystify’ issues related to the current account deficit and the gold market.

📰 Globalisation an ‘irreversible historical trend’: Xi Jinping

“We should support the multilateral trading regime and practice open regionalism to allow developing members to benefit more from international trade and investment,” he said

•Chinese president Xi Jinping laid out his country’s credentials as the new champion of world trade Friday, calling globalisation an “irreversible historical trend”, in comments that offered a contrast to the “America First” doctrine espoused by Donald Trump moments earlier.

•Speaking at the APEC summit in Vietnam, Mr. Xi conceded that the philosophy behind free trade needed to be repurposed to be “more open, more balanced, more equitable and more beneficial to all” but defended multinational trade deals, which he said helped poorer nations benefit from global commerce.

•“We should support the multilateral trading regime and practice open regionalism to allow developing members to benefit more from international trade and investment,” he said in a speech punctuated by regular bouts of applause from delegates.

•The Chinese leader’s comments contrasted with remarks by US president Trump, who had spoken on the same stage moments earlier.

•Mr. Trump gave a spirited airing of his “America First” doctrine, saying Washington would “no longer tolerate” unfair trade, closed markets and intellectual property theft, as he seeks to rewrite the rules of global commerce.

•He also railed against free trade deals between multiple countries, saying instead Washington would prioritise bilateral pacts.

•Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal between 12 Pacific nations that excluded China, has been a boon to Beijing.

•Mr. Xi has stepped into the void, portraying himself as the world’s global free trade leader and pushing its own version of TPP instead.

📰 GST slashed on 178 items ahead of Gujarat elections

Rate in restaurants cut to 5%, will be applicable from Nov. 15

•The Goods and Services Tax Council on Friday sharply reduced to just 50 the number of items in the highest tax rate of 28%.

•At its 23rd meeting in Guwahati, chaired by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the Council also staggered the return filing process, reduced the tax rates on restaurants and expanded the Composition Scheme for small firms.

‘Bold decision’

•Tax experts termed the Council’s decisions — virtually upending the original GST structure — as a bold decision ahead of the Gujarat elections.

•The decisions are expected to win over businesses struggling to cope with the transition to the new indirect tax system. The Council decided to reduce the tax rate on 178 of current 228 items from 28% to 18%, with effect from November 15. Items with tax rates reduced to nil from 5% include guar meal, sweet potatoes, and dried or frozen fish.

•“All restaurants will be taxed at 5%, except those in hotels with a tariff of Rs. 7,500 or more, which will be taxed at 18% with input tax credit. Outdoor catering will be taxed at 18% with ITC,” Mr. Jaitley said.

📰 Slippery oil rally: on the oil-price rise

American shale producers are likely to contain any sustained rally in global oil prices

•The price of oil has risen sharply in recent weeks leading to renewed forecasts of a sustained bull market in the price of the commodity. The price of Brent crude, which breached the $60 mark late last month, is currently trading at about $64 per barrel, a two-year high. In fact, in the last one month alone, oil has gained well over 12%. The oil rally has been even sharper from its June low of a little below $45, from where the commodity has rallied more than 40% to reach its current price, with some experts saying the ongoing rally could portend even higher prices in the coming months. The upsurge this week has been driven primarily by political uncertainty in Saudi Arabia, the world’s second largest producer of oil, and the tightening of supply by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which is expected to extend its supply-cut agreement beyond March. Whether the price gains would sustain and continue over an extended period of time still remains a big question for various reasons, however. Shale oil production is the biggest among them. In the past, North American producers of shale brought a multi-year bull market in oil to an abrupt end. Since then, OPEC has struggled to maintain control over oil prices except for brief spells. The American shale industry has been let free to increase production in response to higher prices, thus imposing a cap on the price of oil. There are no signs yet of a structural change in the oil market to suggest that it could be any different this time.

•Shale producers have continued to pump more oil into the market as crude prices have crossed the $50 mark. According to the Energy Information Administration, a body under the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. shale production is likely to increase by about 81,000 barrels per day in the current month. In addition, in its World Oil Outlook report released this week, OPEC said it expects shale output to grow much faster than it had previously estimated. The cartel’s new estimate is, in fact, more than 50% higher than its projection last year. It also noted that shale output from North America has increased by about 25% over the past one year. All this suggests that shale is likely to remain OPEC’s nemesis for a long time. India has derived huge benefits from lower oil prices since 2014, with the government’s fiscal management and inflation-targeting being rendered a lot easier. There is bound to be some economic unease now as the price of oil fluctuates in what looks likely to be a range-bound market. A repeat of the huge damage caused by the last oil bull market, however, seems unlikely. Nonetheless, policymakers in Delhi will surely take a cautious stance given the extensive impact that oil prices have on the Indian economy.