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The Indian Express Dated: May 15, 2019     Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s visit comes at a time when tensions have escalated between Iran and the US. What is India's stake in this; what are the challenges it faces diplomatically, and as an importer of Iran oil? Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi on Tuesday, the visit coming amid rising tensions between the US and Iran. What factors must India look at as it tries to manoeuvre a diplomatic and strategic position? What is the significance of Zarif’s visit at this time? With the US reimposing sanctions on Iran after a four-year hiatus, India is in a precarious position. It cannot import oil from Iran, with the US having stopped sanctions exemption to India from importing Iranian oil after May 1. Zarif’s trip is a strategic move by Tehran to rally support. A skilled diplomat who was at the forefront of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Acti...

Hindustan Times Dated: May 13, 2019        Pakistan expects to resume talks with India to finalise the agreement on the Kartarpur Corridor once the new government takes charge in New Delhi, according to a Pakistani media report. The Kartarpur Corridor links Gurudwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Narowal with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district in Punjab. The corridor, once operational, will provide a visa-free access to Sikhs from India to their holiest Shrine located inside Pakistan. Pakistan expects the resumption of talks on the Kartarpur Corridor once the new government takes charge in India, official sources were quoted as saying by the Express Tribune on Sunday. The last phase of six-week long general elections in India is scheduled to take place on May 19 and final results would be announced on May 23. A senior Pakistani official said there was no delay on Pakistan’s part. “It is India that is not willing to engage at this juncture,” the...

The print Dated: May 13, 2019 Nayanima Basu New Delhi: The US has finally agreed to extend trade benefits to India under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme till the formation of a new government in New Delhi and finalisation of a new trade package with it, sources have told ThePrint. The decision to not withdraw the GSP benefits from India was informed by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) over the weekend. The deadline to withdraw the GSP benefits was 4 May. “The GSP review is on hold for now…This is the result of some adroit diplomacy on our part from the Ministry of External Affairs, Commerce, PMO and the Indian mission there (in US),” a top Indian official involved in the talks told ThePrint. The official also added that GSP benefits had been extended “long enough for India to revert after elections and engage with the US side”. According to another official, who did not wish to be named, the Narendra Modi government has ...

The Hindu Dated: May 14, 2019 Sriram Lakshman       The USTR proposes tariff hike on 3,805 Chinese goods.        The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on Monday published plans to increase tariffs on 3,805 Chinese imports, valued at about $300 billion. The move was expected since the end of last week and is the latest in a game of tit-for-tat tariffs which will mean that almost all Chinese goods entering the U.S. will be taxed at the higher rate, if the policy is implemented. Monday’s proposed list of goods, which will now attract up to 25% tariffs, includes laptops, mobile phones, clothing, motorbikes and toys. Pharmaceuticals will be excluded. “What’s been left out so far, presumably for political reasons, is the consumer side of Chinese imports into the U.S. This latest list of $300 billion picks that up, “Joshua P. Meltzer, a global economics and trade specialist at Brookings, a Washington DC based think-tank, told The Hindu. ...

The Hindu  Dated May 14, 2019    India proposed a draft document on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) at the UN in 1986 but it has not been implemented as there is no unanimity on the definition of terrorism among the member states. India has expressed support to Nigeria’s Ambassador to the UN Tijjani Muhammad-Bande as the next president of the General Assembly and called him to make the body more action-oriented to deal with the global scourge of terrorism. The current President of the General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa presided on Monday over an informal interactive dialogue with Mr. Muhammad-Bande, nominated by Nigeria, where Member States got an opportunity to discuss his vision statement and question him on his priorities and plans if elected as President of the 74th session of the 193-member General Assembly. The dialogue aims to contribute to the transparency and inclusivity of the selection process. India ...

The Indian Express Dated: May 15, 2019       The lawsuit is about collusion in inflating prices of widely-prescribed generic medicines and names 21 generic drug manufacturers as conspirators in price-fixing scheme. In response to the allegations made in the antitrust lawsuit filed by over 40 US states against 21 pharma manufacturers, domestic generic companies have decided to vigorously defend the allegations as the lawsuit is without merit and said it will not have any immediate material impact on the companies’ operations. The antitrust case was first filed in December 2016 by the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut along with the Attorneys’ General of various other US states filing a lawsuit in the Federal Court alleging that seven Indian generic companies in the US, along few other companies, had violated antitrust laws by fixing prices and allocating customers (the “First State AG Action”). On June 18, 2018, an amended complaint was filed in...

The hindu Dated: may 13, 2019 Lassina Zerbo, the executive secretary of CTBTO, says giving India the opportunity to join as an observer could be a good starting point.  The executive secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), Lassina Zerbo, has invited India to be an observer in the CTBT. “I’m not asking India to ratify [the treaty]  — I know that is not possible now — but I think giving India the opportunity to join as an observer could be a good starting point,” he said. He was speaking to a group of Indian journalists at the CTBTO in Vienna. He spoke of the changes in the organisation, which has moved from being more confined in CTBT and   International  Monitoring System. “[This is] because we are making the data available to people — which is not traditional. This wasn’t possible at the beginning of the organisation. We had what was called the ‘task leader for data confidentiality’, which does not exist any more,” he sai...

Observer Research Foundation Dated: May 14, 2019 Gautam Chikermane       How long will the International Monetary Fund (IMF) continue to brush the world’s greatest problem of terrorism under the carpet of economics? For Pakistan, the two are joined at the hip — a deep state that creates, nourishes and exports terrorism from its soil as a state policy, while thriving on doles received from the US, China and multilateral institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. There is a deeper politics at play here, a politics of negotiation and a transaction of international power games that is diluting the dangers of Pakistan’s brazen state-sponsored terrorism. The IMF’s  12 May 2019 press release  follows this trajectory. For a state, whose sole achievement has been to become the hub of global terror, it is surprising that the T-word almost didn’t make the grade — it is carefully tucked away, almost incognito, in the seventh ou...