1.   

PM Modi to focus on trade relations, logistics at India-ASEAN summit

In a bid to step up India’s engagement with the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to make a strong pitch for improving regional connectivity to give a boost to trade and people-to-people contact at the upcoming summit meeting next week. Modi is slated to leave for Myanmar on Tuesday to attend the 12th ASEAN-India summit on November 12 and the 9th East Asian summit on November 13 on the first leg of his three-nation foreign tour that will also take him to Australia and Fiji.

2.   

Government Committed to Remove Red Tape and Provide Single Window Clearance for Investors: Sitharaman

Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry, co-chaired the Eighth Session of the India-Russia Forum on Trade and Investment in New Delhi on November 5, 2014 along with Mr. D. Rogozin, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. Mr. Rogozin participated along with a high profile Russian delegation, including government officials and businessmen. The Indian delegation included officials from Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Department of Commerce, ministry of External Affairs, Department of Pharmaceuticals and business representatives from CII and FICCI.

3.   

Demand for food likely to shoot up in coming years: Harsimrat Kaur Badal

Highlighting the schemes of her ministry, Union Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said the demand for food is likely to shoot up three times in another few years in the country. Holding an interactive session with SAD-BJP MLAs of Punjab here, she said "the rate at which India's population is growing -- 1.5 per cent per year --, the demand for food is likely to go up three times in another few years".

4.   

Sitharaman sees hope for trade facilitation in WTO talks

India on Sunday exuded confidence that the current impasse over the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and food security in the World Trade Organization (WTO) would be resolved but also indicated such a resolution might not come soon as it stood firm on its stance over food subsidy to the poor. Commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman also castigated the Bali package, signed during the previous United Progressive Alliance regime, as distorted and imperfect, hurting the sovereign rights of India to feed its poor and procure from farmers living on subsistence farming.