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James Politi Financial Times China has lashed out at the US over its blacklisting of Huawei, accusing it of abusing national security exceptions to global trade rules during a tense meeting at the World Trade Organization. The confrontation in Geneva on Tuesday highlighted the extent to which President Donald Trump’s move to commercially isolate Huawei by placing it on an export blacklist has further inflamed trade tensions between the countries and complicated hopes of a deal to end their trade war. According to a trade official based in Geneva, China introduced a discussion of the Huawei ban at a meeting of the WTO’s market access committee under “other business” — then proceeded to attack the Trump administration’s move. The representative from Beijing then accused the US of violating WTO rules by proceeding with the action against Huawei, and said Washington should “immediately lift all unilateral sanction measures against Chinese companies”. China widened its argument to sa...

The Hindu Businessline New Delhi Now any industry carrying ISO 13485 certificate with NABCB logo will be recognised in Asia Pacific The National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB), India’s national accreditation body, has secured international equivalence for its accreditation programme for Medical Devices - Quality Management Systems (MDQMS) certification bodies by signing the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) of the Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC). “Now any industry carrying ISO 13485 certificate with NABCB logo will be recognised in Asia Pacific region. The immediate beneficiary of this equivalence is the Indian industry which is exporting products to various Asia Pacific countries,” according to an official release of the Commerce & Industry Ministry. It can also be used by regulators for establishing confidence in certified units. The MRA covers accreditation programme based on international standards, ISO 17021-1 and ISO 134...

Prince Dhawan  The Hindu Businessline From building a credible database to incentivising micro food enterprises, States must back the Centre’s agri initiatives The Centre recently announced some long-awaited and welcome reforms in the field of agriculture and allied activities, as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. This, therefore, is an opportune time for the States to dovetail their State-specific reforms in this sector, which employs more than 50 per cent of the Indian workforce and contributes around 18 per cent of GDP. The farmer who toils the hardest in the field doesn’t get his due share from his produce. Some of the main reasons for this bitter reality are: inadequate bargaining power, lack of direct access to markets, no stake in the value addition supply chain, lack of price guarantees for crops, lack of branding of farm produce, and poor access to formal credit systems. All this is set to change now with the Centre announcing specific policy de...

G Chandrashekhar The Hindu Businesslin There are several non-price and non-trade initiatives that are also necessary to strengthen the farm sector It is time the venerable Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) got out of its cloistered silo. According to media reports, the panel has recommended a hike in the minimum support price (MSP) for various kharif crops for the year 2020-21. Apart from rice and coarse grains, pulses, oilseeds and cotton are covered under the MSP regime. There is an erroneous belief that recommendation of higher MSP season after season will motivate growers and encourage them to produce more. Empirical evidence, if any, is specious to prove this. On the other hand, anecdotal reports suggest growers are little concerned about MSP and, more often than not, they are unaware of the support price announced. Worse, government announces the MSP well after kharif planting gets under way, defeating even the academic objectives of MSP. Loo...

By Bloomberg, Known as China’s “bat woman,” the deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology said research into viruses needs scientists and governments to be transparent and cooperative, and that it is “very regrettable” when science is politicized. Shi Zhengli, a virologist renowned for her work on coronavirus in bats, said in an interview on Chinese state television that viruses being discovered now are “just the tip of the iceberg” and called for international cooperation in the fight against epidemics. Known as China’s “bat woman,” the deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology said research into viruses needs scientists and governments to be transparent and cooperative, and that it is “very regrettable” when science is politicized. “If we want to prevent human beings from suffering from the next infectious disease outbreak, we must go in advance to learn of these unknown viruses carried by wild animals in nature and give early warnings,” Shi told CGTN. “...

Sushant Singh , Krishn Kaushik | The Indian Express Amid tensions with China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting Tuesday with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and chiefs of the three services. Earlier, General Rawat and the three chiefs met Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and briefed him on the ground situation in Ladakh, deployment of armed forces and the state of preparedness on the LAC. The military brass is learnt to have apprised the Prime Minister about the evolving situation in eastern Ladakh though officials maintained that the meeting was pre-scheduled and reforms in the armed forces was on the agenda. The meetings came ahead of the three-day conference of Army commanders starting in Delhi on Wednesday. It will be attended by Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Y K Joshi whose command is responsible for eastern Ladakh. He is well versed with the ...

Sushant Singh The Indian Express The unprecedented high levels of tension at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh on the disputed India-China border, where Chinese soldiers have moved into Indian territory across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), has raised questions about the Chinese motives for this action. Most observers were eagerly waiting for Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s annual press conference on the sidelines of the Communist Party Congress for an explanation, but his 100-minute long presser in Beijing on Sunday did not mention India at all. “The Chinese learnt from the public handling of the Doklam crisis. They thought India would be quick to brief the media, so they did it first and continued to do so. We were calm and measured, calling for discussions and negotiations. They are trying to avoid that kind of situation. Quiet diplomacy has space to produce results in these kinds of situations,” Gautam Bambawale, who was India’s ambassador to China from 2017 to...

By :Jacob Koshy and Bindu Shajan Perappadan The Hindu The World Health Organisation’s (WHO)  moratorium on testing hydroxychloroquine  (HCQ), the controversial anti-malarial drug, for treating  COVID-19 , which was announced on Monday, doesn’t imply that India should pause testing the drug as a preventive, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO, told  The Hindu  in an email. However, she stressed that India ought to be doing stricter trials to test the drug’s efficacy in staving off infection in asymptomatic people at high-risk of contracting the virus. HCQ was one of four drug-combinations being tested in a global clinical trial, called Solidarity Trial, coordinated by the WHO. Hydroxychloroquine  |  Can the anti-malarial drug contain COVID-19?  Four hundred hospitals in 35 countries would be comparing the benefits to COVID patients from taking either Remdesivir; Lopinavir/Ritonavir; Lopinavir/Ritonavir with Interferon beta-1a; and...

By:  Ananth Krishnan Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 26 called on the military “to think about worst-case scenarios” and “scale up battle preparedness”. He made the remarks during his annual meeting with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) representatives attending the National People’s Congress or Parliament in Beijing. Mr. Xi had also referred to “battle preparedness” during his meeting with the PLA in 2019. This year, his speech focused on the post-pandemic situation, as he heard the PLA members of Parliament reporting on “strengthening training amid the epidemic, and accelerating capacity building on biosecurity defence”. Mr. Xi said the epidemic “brought a profound impact on the global landscape and on China’s security and development as well”. He “ordered the military to think about worst-case scenarios, scale up training and battle preparedness, promptly and effectively deal with all sorts of complex situations and resolutely safeguard national sovereignt...