Why India dithers on the mega trade deal

Sixteen CEOs and economists lay out a roadmap to revive the economy

Reliance, HUL, Amazon, Flipkart and Grofers are hooking neighbourhood stores as force multipliers

Ola, Uber rates: In a letter to the minister, Dr Ashwani Mahajan, All India co-convener, SJM, had alleged that the taxi aggregators, including Uber and Ola, are profiteering under the ambit of surge pricing.

Ever since RCEP negotiations started six years ago, experts from participating countries have had 28 rounds of negotiations, the last being at Da Nang, Vietnam, from September 19 - 27

RCEP is a mega free trade agreement of 10 ASEAN countries with their six FTA partners, India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand

In a letter to the minister, Ashwani Mahajan, All India co-convener, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch has alleged that the taxi aggregators, including Uber and Ola, are profiteering under the ambit of surge pricing

In 2018-19, India had trade deficit with 11 out of 20 RCEP countries. In 2017-18, it had a trade deficit of $104 billion with all RCEP countries; more than half of this ($57.86 trillion) was with China

The 16 negotiating partners have agreed that they should not lose the long-term vision of deepening and expanding the value chains in the RCEP

The issue blew up on August 14 when restaurants across major cities started the #logout campaign in protest to deep-discounting that some platforms were providing users. Restaurants felt deep-discounting was hurting the core value proposition of the restaurant business and undermining its value

The Swadeshi Jagran Manch said India's telecommunications network should be fully indigenised and reserved for domestic companies on security grounds

Huawei, the world's biggest maker of such gear, is at the centre of a geopolitical tug-of-war between China and the United States

Even if the government decides to go ahead and issue sovereign bonds in foreign currency, its rising borrowings will continue to put pressure on liquidity in the domestic market

A team of DoT officials are scheduled to visit China to attend a conference on 5G sponsored by Huawei on August 1-2, 2019.

Word is that former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg did not properly apprise the PMO of the consequences of borrowing in external currency. This contention does not seem to hold water

We made our position clear to all those who matter, SJM's Ashwani Mahajan says. The economic wing of RSS opposes the idea raising sovereign overseas borrowing, and believes Garg was the brain behind it