‘Sovereignty and global engagement can power the modern Indian economy’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto India’s digital trade compact with the United Kingdom breaks new ground. Chapter 12 of the India-U.K. Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) sets out a bargain that trades some oversight tools for access, credibility and scale. The trade-off has sparked…
Representative image | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto The new GST regime previewed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address would be consumer-centric, with particular emphasis on the poor, the MSMEs, the middle class and the farmers, senior government sources said on Sunday (August 17, 2025). The new two-tier Goods and Services Tax…
On August 11, 2025, the central government implored India’s seafood industry, that provides livelihoods to about 28 million people, to “bravely face” the U.S.’s tariffs of 25% that kicked in on August 7, 2025 and which could be raised to 50% on August 27, 2025, contingent upon the outcome of trade negotiations. On August 13,…
The Centre has proposed to reduce the number of slabs under the Goods and Services Tax system, retaining the 5% and 18% slabs, while introducing a lower concessional rate below 1% and a high “sin rate” of 40% on just five to seven items each, according to official sources. This would entail entirely doing away…
India’s purchase of Russian oil has risen to 2 million barrels per day (bpd) in August, as refiners continue to prioritise economic considerations in their sourcing decisions. As much as 38% out of an estimated 5.2 million barrels per day of crude oil imported in the first half of August came from Russia, according to…
Representational image only. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Diwali gift” to the people of India, of reforms to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system, will likely be across three pillars — structural reforms, rate rationalisation, and ease of living — and could entail a shift to a two-rate GST system…
78 Years of Freedom The Narendra Modi government’s quest to bolster the domestic manufacturing sector is not the first time a government has tried this. In fact, the manufacturing sector has been the focus of government policy — in one way or the other — ever since 1956, to relatively modest success. At the time…
Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal. File | Photo Credit: PTI India continues to be “fully engaged” with the U.S. on a Bilateral Trade Agreement, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said on Thursday, however adding that the date for the next round of negotiations has not yet been decided. He reiterated the deadline for the deal as fall…
The S&P Global logo. | Photo Credit: Reuters The ratings agency S&P Global has after an 18-year gap upgraded India’s rating, to BBB from BBB-, citing the country’s “economic resilience and fiscal consolidation”. S&P also kept India’s long-term outlook as ‘stable’. In a post on X, the Ministry of Finance welcomed the decision, saying it…
A vendor arranging the pulses at a market, as the WPI stayed in negative territory for the second consecutive month at (-) 0.58% in July. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma Wholesale price inflation (WPI) stayed in negative territory for the second consecutive month at (-) 0.58% in July, as prices of food articles and…
