📰 India’s pivot to Eurasia
When you have complicated ties with neighbours, it makes sense to strengthen ties with your neighbours’ neighbours
•Sandwiched between U.S. President Donald Trump’s acrimonious public exchanges with other leaders at the G-7 (group of seven industrialised countries) summit (June 7-8) and the headline-hogging U.S.-North Korea summit (June 12), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Qingdao, China (June 9-10) attracted little international attention. It was the first SCO summit attended by India as a full-fledged member (It has been an observer since 2005.)
•The SCO grew out of the Shanghai Five grouping — of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan — which was set up in 1996 to resolve boundary disputes between China and each of the four other members. It admitted Uzbekistan in 2001, re-christened itself the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and broadened its agenda to include political, economic and security cooperation. It admitted India and Pakistan as full members in 2017.
The SCO opportunity
•The admission of India and Pakistan has expanded the geographical, demographic and economic profile of the SCO, which now has about half the world’s population and a quarter of its GDP. Its boundary extends southwards to the Indian Ocean.
•The SCO’s relevance for India lies in geography, economics and geopolitics. Its members occupy a huge landmass adjacent to India’s extended neighbourhood, where India has important economic and security interests. Its Central Asian countries border Afghanistan, Pakistan and China. A narrow sliver of land separates southern Tajikistan from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. When you have complicated relations with your neighbours, it makes sense to strengthen relations with your neighbours’ neighbours. With Pakistan joining the Organisation and Afghanistan and Iran knocking on the doors for membership, the logic of India’s membership becomes stronger.
•Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the optimal development of India’s relations with Central Asian countries has been constrained by lack of overland access through Pakistan and Afghanistan/Iran, because of political and/or security reasons. With new multimodal transport corridors now envisaged through Iran, there are again prospects of invigorating trade and investment links with this region (provided fresh U.S. sanctions on Iran do not stymie this effort).
•In the formative years of the SCO, Russia pushed strongly for India to join it, to somewhat balance China’s economic dominance in Central Asia. The Chinese were not responsive. China has since consolidated its energy and economic foothold in the region, where ambitious infrastructure and connectivity projects are envisaged as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It has secured the simultaneous admission of Pakistan into the SCO. India has to carve out a political and economic space for itself in Central Asia, alongside Russia’s role as net security provider and China’s dominating economic presence. The Central Asian countries would welcome India breaking into this Russia-China duopoly.
•The India-Pakistan interaction was closely watched in Qingdao. The handshake and exchange of pleasantries between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain were noted, as also the absence of bilateral altercations. It allayed apprehensions, expressed in the run-up to Indian and Pakistani accession, that SCO deliberations would get bogged down by India-Pakistan squabbles. It also respected the etiquette of international organisations: countries join them to promote shared objectives, not to settle bilateral scores.
The India-Pakistan track
•Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that harmonious cooperation in the SCO may pave the way for an India-Pakistan rapprochement, recalling that SCO membership had facilitated resolution of China’s boundary disputes with Russia and Central Asian countries. Chinese officials have also expressed this hope. The circumstances are not comparable. China made substantial concessions to settle its boundary disputes with Russia and Central Asia, in pursuit of larger strategic and economic objectives in the region. India-Pakistan differences extend well beyond a boundary dispute, flow from different historical circumstances and are located in a different geopolitical environment.
•The SCO will, however, nudge both countries to cooperate in sensitive areas. One example is the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO, which coordinates cooperation for security and stability, through intelligence-sharing on criminal and terrorist activities. India and Pakistan, which exchange mutual recriminations in such matters, have to find ways of cooperating in the RATS. Defence cooperation is another tricky area: enhanced linkages between armed forces is an SCO objective. India has agreed to participate in the SCO’s counter-terrorism military exercises in Russia later this year, when Indian and Pakistani troops will operate together. Reconciling Indian and Pakistani perspectives in the SCO’s initiatives on Afghanistan would be yet another challenge.
•The expansion of SCO has diluted its unanimity on hitherto shared perspectives. Tacitly accepting the fact that India and Pakistan are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Qingdao declaration confirms the compliance of the SCO’s NPT signatories to its provisions. India’s reservations on China’s BRI are accommodated by excluding it from the list of SCO members that endorse it (all except India). The boilerplate formulations on terrorism accommodate the concerns of various members, without offending any. The essence of a functioning multilateral framework is focusing on shared objectives and underplaying divergences.
•Besides expanding opportunities for India in Central Asia, the SCO is a platform for articulating a non-Western — as distinct from anti-Western — perspective on global issues. This includes opposition to selective advocacy of regime change, self-serving homilies on human rights and intrusive advice on domestic policies. It suits India that the SCO is not stridently anti-West in its pronouncements. The U.S. cultivates relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to ensure logistical support for its Afghanistan operations and to gradually wean them away from Russian influence. These countries welcome the room for manoeuvre that this gives them. Russia and China also carefully avoid strong anti-West postures in the SCO, preferring to deal with differences quietly and bilaterally.
Balance of forces
•The challenge for India — besides that of security and defence cooperation with Pakistan — may come from increasing Chinese dominance of the SCO. This could happen if Russia-U.S. relations worsen further, leading Russia to an even greater dependence on Chinese political and economic support. Another possible game-changer could be the fallout of the much-heralded U.S.-North Korea summit. If, as Mr. Trump has hinted, peace in the Korean peninsula leads to reduced American military presence in the region, it would dramatically change the balance of forces in the Asia-Pacific in favour of China. This would transform Eurasian dynamics, with an inevitable impact on SCO.
📰 ‘India stands for a multi-polar order’
President Kovind echoes PM Modi
•President Ram Nath Kovind, in a speech at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy in Athens, said, “India is committed to an international order marked by robust, rules-based multilateral institutions; by multi-polarity in international governance; and by investment and connectivity projects that are viable, sustainable.”
•Echoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks at the recent Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore calling for “strategic autonomy”, President Kovind’s emphasis upon maintaining multilateral commitments indicates that India is keen to maintain a non-aligned attitude towards major power blocs in the world.
Pro-globalisation
•The President, who is visiting Greece as part of his ongoing three-nation tour, said the interconnections that marked the era of globalisation have come under stress in recent years but urged Europe to join hands with India which is a “responsible power”, to preserve globalisation. “As a responsible power, India seeks to be a rule framer and rule custodian,” he said.
•President Kovind’s speech highlighted the syncretic connections between the European and Indian traditions of art, politics and state formation and described Greece and India are “sister civilisations” who have been part of the large family of humanity as exemplified in the Indian notion of “ Vasudhaiva kutumbakam ”.
•President Kovind’s speech in Greece coincided with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s ongoing visit to Europe.
📰 Social media hub idea may not take off
The last date for tenders has been extended for the fourth time after the govt. didn’t get ‘enough bids’
•The Centre’s controversial proposal to set up a social media communication hub appears to be headed for a quiet burial. Public sector firm Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd., which is supposed to be handling the project, has extended the last date for tenders. This is the fourth time the date has been extended.
•Originally, the BECIL had called for submission of bids for supply of software for the hub by May 17; the date was then extended to May 24, then again to May 31 and then to June 18. Now it has been extended to August 20.
•According to sources, the government, on all the four occasions, did not get enough bids.
•Sources also said that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has started having a rethink on the entire project.
Time to study project
•After the new Information and Broadcasting secretary, Amit Khare, took over, he asked the tender to be put on hold for a few days, asking for time to study the project. He wanted to specifically understand how the information collected by the hub would be put to use.
•The proposal to set up such a hub had turned controversial, as many called it an indirect measure to “snoop” on and influence voters. The hub proposes to monitor social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even email) handles at the very local level in multiple languages to carry out “sentiment analysis”, track down the influence-making social media users and to categorise the conversations on social media into positive, negative and neutral sections.
•It also aimed to track real time the way social media receives news on government’s schemes and announcements and also political events.
•Under the project, media persons would be employed on a contractual basis in each district to be the “eyes and ears” of the government.
•The proposal also said the hub requires tools to be able to “listen to email” and assist the government in tailoring campaigns to promote “positive opinions and neutralise negative sentiments” about government schemes.
📰 China accuses Trump of ‘blackmail’ after new U.S. threat of 10% tariff
•Beijing on Tuesday accused Donald Trump of “blackmail” and warned that it would retaliate in kind after the U.S. President threatened to impose fresh tariffs on Chinese goods.
•Mr. Trump said on Monday that he had asked the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to target $200 billion worth of imports for a 10% levy, citing China’s “unacceptable” move to raise its own tariffs.
•He added he would identify an extra $200 billion of goods — for a possible total of $450 billion, or most Chinese imports — “if China increases its tariffs yet again”.
‘Unfair trade practices’
•“Further action must be taken to encourage China to change its unfair practices, open its market to United States goods and accept a more balanced trade relationship with the United States,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.
•Last week, he announced 25% tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to retaliate with matching duties.
•China’s Commerce Ministry immediately responded by saying that the U.S. “practice of extreme pressure and blackmail departed from the consensus reached by both sides during multiple negotiations and has also greatly disappointed international society”.
•Also, on Monday, the U.S. Senate defied Mr. Trump by voting to overrule his administration’s deal with legislation to reimpose the ban on hi-tech chip sales to ZTE, whose fate has figured prominently in the trade talks.
📰 The imperative to offer refuge
Why India urgently needs a national asylum policy
•This month, it is five years since Nargis first arrived in Delhi. The Afghan journalist in Herat, Afghanistan had to flee her country after the Taliban threatened to kill her. But as a refugee in India, she has had no opportunity to earn a living and has been unable to rebuild her life.
•Today, India is host to over 200,000 refugees like her who have been forced to flee conflict and persecution in their home countries. On World Refugee Day (June 20), there is a need to reassess India’s approach to refugee protection, particularly in light of the regional refugee crisis after the mass exodus of the Rohingya from Myanmar.
•Traditionally, India has hosted several persecuted groups such as Tibetans and Sri Lankans. While it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no domestic asylum law, it has reiterated its commitment towards the protection of refugees at various international fora, including the UN General Assembly.
•One of the most significant affirmations of this commitment was demonstrated by India becoming a signatory to the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, which was adopted by 193 countries in September 2016. In doing so, India has expressed its solidarity with those forced to flee and agreed that protecting refugees and supporting the countries that shelter them are shared international responsibilities that must be borne more equitably.
•The Declaration sets the stage for a new framework for refugee protection — the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). The Compact is a coordinated effort to strengthen international response to protracted refugee situations and comprehensively addresses all stages of refugee protection, from reception to long-term solutions. Two of its key objectives are to ease pressures on host countries and enhance refugee self-reliance. The GCR recognises that certain refugee situations can last for decades and acknowledges that the burden is borne largely by developing countries, that now host over 80% of the refugee population in the world. In light of this, it calls for support from the international community in the form of resources. It also seeks to establish forums to enable expertise-sharing to promote economic opportunities, decent work and job creation not just for refugees but also for the host community. Since the Declaration was adopted, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been engaging with member states, UN bodies, and non-governmental organisations to develop a plan for its practical implementation; this will be finalised by the end of 2018.
Indian context
•Although India has hosted refugees of varying nationalities for decades, the country has done little beyond providing asylum. There have been some attempts to introduce a refugee law in the country, the latest being the Asylum Bill 2015, introduced as a private member’s bill by Shashi Tharoor. However, none has gone the distance and the government continues to adopt an ad hoc approach towards this group. Given that most refugees have been unable to return to their countries, leading to protracted refugee situations, there is an urgent need for the government to develop a uniform framework for their management during their stay in India.
•For instance, due to their unclear legal status and lack of uniform documentation, refugees have limited access to essential services and almost no avenues for livelihood. While some refugees have been able to generate income by working in the informal sector, many of them, especially vulnerable women like Nargis, are at the mercy of touts and traffickers even within their own community. At best, they are forced to rely on income from odd jobs which is an unsustainable livelihood option that often leaves them exposed to exploitation.
•The solution to this may lie within the GCR, which calls for States to identify gaps and opportunities for employment and income generation for refugees in a bid to enhance their self-reliance. Moreover, it specifies the need to include the host community in enabling mapping skills, vocational training and capacity-building among refugee populations, thereby fostering understanding and cooperation among the communities and paving the way for a socially cohesive approach.
•India’s commitment to refugee protection under the GCR is evident in its active participation in ongoing GCR consultations, where it has emphasised the need for a clear mechanism for the refugee response regime. Therefore this is an opportune time for India to reassess the need for a national asylum policy which is compliant with the principles laid down in the GCR. This will not only re-establish India’s place as a democratic regional power committed to core humanitarian principles but will also provide refugees such as Nargis a chance to give back to the country that has adopted her.
📰 Air India privatisation plan shelved
As there were no bids, govt. feels it is not the right time for disinvestment
•After it failed to get any buyers for the debt-ridden national carrier, the government has shelved its plan to privatise Air India exactly a year after the Union Cabinet gave its nod for the disinvestment process.
•“Now is not the right time to privatise Air India. We received no bids. We will look at improving efficiencies by bringing private people to work with the airline’s top brass,” the source told The Hindu . He added that measures such as cutting down costs as well as monetisation of Air India’s assets would be adopted in order to run the airline. The source attributed the lack of interest in the disinvestment process to rising fuel prices and hinted that the government could revisit the plan to offload its stake in Air India at a later stage.
•The decision was taken at a meeting convened by senior BJP leader and Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday. The broad contours of Air India’s privatisation were made public at March-end and interested players were invited to place initial bids. However, there were no bids when the deadline ended on May 31.
Debt and liabilities
•The government had offered to sell 76% of its stake in Air India, along with low-cost subsidiary Air India Express and its 50% share in ground-handling arm AISATS as a single entity. The buyer would have to take on the debt and current liabilities of Rs. 33,392 crore.
📰 Keralites face highest risk of cardiovascular disease, finds study
•A study based on two recent national surveys of nearly 8,00,000 adults between 34 and 70 years, has found that people of Kerala — across sexes — were most at risk of cardiovascular diseases while those in Jharkhand were least likely to have the condition. A gender break down, however, puts the women of Goa at highest mean cardiovascular risk at 16.73% while men in Himachal Pradesh and Nagaland were most vulnerable with mean cardiovascular risk of 24.23%.
•The surveys carried out between 2012 and 2014, found wide variations in the average 10-year risk of a fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular disease event among States. A paper published on June 19 in PLOS Medicine found the risk ranging from a low of 13.2% for both sexes in Jharkhand to 19.5% in Kerala.
Urban tendency
•The study, led by researchers at Public Health Foundation of India and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found that adults in urban areas, as well as those with a higher household wealth, tended to have a greater cardiovascular risk. The study used the data from the District Level Household Survey-4 (DLHS-4) and the second update of the Annual Health Survey (AHS). The surveys covered 27 of the 29 States and five of the seven Union Territories.
•With 19.90%, adults living in urban areas in Kerala had the highest mean risk, followed by West Bengal (19.12%) and Himachal Pradesh (18.97%). In contrast, those living in urban areas of Daman and Diu had the lowest mean risk (12.60%), followed by Bihar (13.63%) and Arunachal Pradesh (14.71%).
•In general, the cardiovascular risk is lower in rural areas compared with urban areas. But Goa has bucked this trend with the rural areas showing a higher mean value (18.92%) than the urban areas (18.79%).
•In the case of Kerala, the difference between highest mean risk in rural (19.23%) and urban areas (19.90%) is meagre.The same questionnaire and methodology was used throughout to collect clinical, anthropometric, and biomarker measurements.
•While smoking was more prevalent in poorer households and rural areas, wealthy households and urban locations faced risks from high body mass index, high blood glucose and high systolic blood pressure.
📰 The last to know: on ICICI imbroglio
The conduct of the board of ICICI Bank raises questions about corporate governance
•The board of ICICI Bank has finally acted on the allegations of misconduct against its CEO and managing director, Chanda Kochhar. It had earlier maintained that she was on annual personal leave; now, she will stay away from the office till the completion of an inquiry into the charges levelled against her by a whistle-blower. Rather than allow the controversy to fester, the board of ICICI Bank, an institution that often sought to hold a mirror up to the inefficiencies of public sector banks, should have acted earlier. Till the inquiry is complete the bank will be steered by a new chief operating officer, Sandeep Bakhshi. The official version is that he will report to Ms. Kochhar, who herself took the decision to go on leave till the end of the inquiry — but this is at best a face-saving cover for a board that was reluctant to act since the controversy broke. Meanwhile, the tenure of M.K. Sharma, the chairman of the bank’s board, is set to end this month and there is still no clarity on his successor. This extended uncertainty in a crisis situation is unwarranted. ICICI Bank’s troubles are rooted in a 2016 complaint by an investor alleging a quid pro quo deal between Ms. Kochhar’s immediate family members and the Videocon group, which got a ₹3,250-crore loan from it. When this ‘conflict of interest’ complaint resurfaced in the public domain this year, Mr. Sharma said he had personally inquired into it two years earlier and found nothing amiss.
•With the Central Bureau of Investigation and later the stock market regulator SEBI swooping in, the issue of whether the bank had failed to make adequate disclosures about its dealings with the borrower (who is now a defaulter) and a firm related to Ms. Kochhar’s husband was spotlighted. The bank is yet to respond to SEBI, but changed tack after the latter decided to launch a probe into allegations of a quid pro quo and alleged misconduct by Ms. Kochhar. Three weeks on, the names of the members of and terms of reference for the probe panel to be led by retired Supreme Court judge B.N. Srikrishna are still awaited. It is debatable whether such a high-profile panel is required to ascertain if Ms. Kochhar, whose term ends next March, had made adequate disclosures while deciding on the loans. The board itself could have dealt with this through an internal investigation rather than giving the impression that it wanted to paper over the issue, sending a poor signal to all stakeholders. No doubt Ms. Kochhar, a star on the corporate firmament, enjoys a formidable reputation as a banker. While one should not prejudge the inquiry findings, there is no doubt that the strength of corporate governance practices in the bank has come under question because of the way the issue has played out.
📰 Less talk, more action
When it comes to improving learning outcomes in India, we have no timeto waste
•I’m not a big fan of Elvis Presley but a line from one of his songs has stuck in my mind — “A little less conversation, a little more action, please.” When it comes to improving learning outcomes in India, we have no time to waste. No time for conference speakers to drone on, no time for research that only produces another report on poor learning levels in the country, and no time to complain about how accountability systems and processes are broken. Too many children are not learning and every moment that we don’t act is a moment wasted in a child’s life. We also need to act in ways that will focus on improving learning. While there has been an increase in education spending over the last five years, learning outcomes have been poor and have been declining.
•First, we need clear examples of what good quality education looks like. There aren’t enough real cases that demonstrate what good quality education means for every child in the classroom and raise the bar for what our education system should deliver. My litmus test for this is my own eight-year-old son. When I evaluate the performance of the schools that we run in partnership with the government, I constantly ask myself whether I would send my son to the schools. If the answer is yes, I know we’re doing something right. If I’m not sure, we need to do better.
•Second, we need to focus on classroom practice, because that’s where change needs to happen. Teachers need to be equipped with the right training on effective techniques and they should be introduced to concepts such as differentiation, where each child learns according to his or her level. Teacher training must be practical and teachers must be provided feedback on the job.
•Third, we need to involve parents. I cringe when I hear someone say, “These parents are not educated and won’t provide any support to the child.” This is untrue. We’ve seen parents deeply invested in their child’s education — attendance at our parent-teacher meetings is 95%. They are willing to do what it takes to ensure their child doesn’t struggle the way they did.
•Fourth, we need to scale programmes that demonstrate impact and not just run to the next innovation or pilot. Supporting the expansion of a proven model to 1,000 schools is more likely to lead to classroom impact than supporting 10 new programmes that all strive to “redefine education.” Programmes must be rigorously evaluated for impact before they are scaled.
•Fifth, we need to partner more. Whether it’s public-private partnerships or NGO partnerships or State government knowledge sharing, more needs to happen. It takes a village to raise a child and it will take a nation working together to ensure that all children get the education they deserve.
📰 PSU bank deposits safe: Goyal
‘Government committed to ensuring viability and success of every PSU bank’
•The public’s money is ‘extremely safe’ in public sector banks and the government is 100% committed to these banks, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.
•“Public money is extremely safe in public sector banks,” Mr. Goyal said at a press conference following a meeting with the heads of public sector banks. “The government stands behind public sector banks 100%... government-owned banks’ deposits are 100% safe and secure.”
‘More powers for RBI’
•The Minister said that the government was open to the idea of providing the Reserve Bank of India with more powers to effectively regulate and manage public sector banks. His comments follows RBI Governor Urjit Patel’s statements to the Standing Committee on Finance that the central bank needed more powers, such as the ability to appoint and dismiss the heads of PSBs.
•“The government stands 100% committed to support each and every one of our public sector banks and to ensure the viability and successful future of every PSU bank, particularly because they are the engines which take financial inclusion to the last man at the bottom of the pyramid,” Mr. Goyal added. “I don’t think PSBs have got into losses... now. This was already existing, it’s only that we have shown the mirror to the world.”
‘Two-stage plan’
•Following the meeting with bankers, Mr. Goyal said PSBs had come up with a plan to take up the credit needs of ‘genuine, deserving, well-performing and good companies.’
•First, they will assess the needs of firms with borrowings between Rs. 200 crore and Rs. 2,000 crore. In the second stage, they will take up accounts with borrowings of up to Rs. 200 crore, which, he said, would cover MSMEs.
📰 India to defend GSP benefits at USTR
At hearing set for Tuesday, country to argue that stand on dairy not about access but certification
•India is expected to challenge charges levelled against it by the U.S dairy and medical devices industries at a hearing before the United States Trade Representative (USTR) office scheduled for Tuesday and defend its eligibility for benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme.
•The GSP programme provides for the duty-free treatment of designated articles when imported from beneficiary developing countries to America. What is at stake is exports worth about $5 billion annually, of 1,937 products from India. The USTR is reviewing India’s eligibility under the programme, after complaints from bodies representing the dairy and medical devices industry. The USTR had accused India of implementing “a wide array of trade barriers that create serious negative effects on U.S. commerce,” in April, announcing the review. The petitions calling for a review of India’s GSP benefits, “based on concerns that India has allegedly created trade barriers for these industries,” are “without substantive merits,” Indian embassy official Puneet Roy Kundal said in a written submission to the USTR. Mr. Kundal was also scheduled to participate in the hearing.
•“India requires that dairy products [be] derived from animals which have never consumed any feeds containing internal organs, blood meal, or tissues of ruminant origin.
•“In this regard, India has explained to the U.S that India’s position is based on religious, cultural and moral grounds. India is committed to respect the religious and cultural beliefs of its people and it will be inappropriate to impute any other considerations to this decision,” India told the USTR, pointing out that several countries export dairy products to India, meeting these requirements.
•India imports dairy products from countries such as Australia and Switzerland. India will tell the USTR that this is not a question of market access but of certifications. “If several countries can meet this certification requirement, how can’t the U.S?” wondered an Indian official.
Defends price control
•Defending India’s measures to control prices of the medical devices, the submission said, the country was committed to providing its citizens with equitable and affordable access to essential medicines and medical devices. But this is a huge business opportunity for American companies, the submission argues. “The large size of the Indian population…is likely to benefit U.S and other multinational companies involved in manufacturing of such devices,” it said.
•Indian submission also seeks to address the Donald Trump administration’s protectionist political platform. “..An examination of the top GSP benefiting imports into the U.S shows that Indian products receiving GSP benefits are intermediary goods which are not bound to cause any injury to domestically manufactured goods in the U.S.,” it said. Of the total value of merchandise imports of the U.S. approximately $2.36 trillion only $5.6 billion, it pointed out. A USTR delegation will be travelling to India next week for further negotiations on a host of trade issues between the countries, which remained inconclusive after Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu’s visit to the U.S. last week.
